Paul Robinson In Africa - IcFEM Gap Programme

Blog #30

2007-08-26T11:48:00.001+03:00

I think I’m the only person in the world who can go to Africa which is a place associated with poverty and a great climate and come home fatter with less of a tan than I left with. It’s been an absolutely amazing experience and the effect it makes on my life has become even more obvious once I stepped foot back in this country and actually felt like I was back at home. It has been incredible and from being back week now, I really wish I was once again with the friends and people I have met over in Kenya. Don’t get me wrong, my family and friends here are awesome, it’s just, without sounding too dramatic, it does kind of feel as if some piece of me has been left behind.

Maybe I’m just feeling a little sorry for myself because my “time away” is now over and I have to return to normal life and continue with work and things as I did before I left. It’s quiet depressing to see how things have not changed much, yes roads and buildings have had some maintenance and some peoples lives have moved into maybe a new direction, but as for me, everything remains the way it was and because of that I’ve been even more inspired to make some changes in my life, even if they appear to be quite insignificant.

So the question is, how has it effected my life and what have I learnt from this 13 week experience. It’s not always been easy but compared to the lives many of the Kenyan people are living, mine has pretty much been a doddle. I was sheltered from most dangers and quite comfortable to say I was in a country that experienced poverty. I’m not ashamed to say that I lived well as I don’t think I could have stayed and hacked living in poor conditions for my three month period, but I am extremely happy with myself for taking this step and embarking on a journey that over a year ago I don’t think I would have even imagined doing.

I’ve realized that in my life I don’t necessarily need other people around me to allow me to complete something successfully but I do know that it is nice to have loving people around to encourage me and have the faith in myself to do it. I can do things on my own and that has been clarified for me, however I seriously do enjoy sharing my experiences with others so that my memories involve those who I also care a lot about. I took this opportunity as a way of testing the skills I have acquired in life so far and also to do some good and learn more about myself and others. I’m so glad that I was able to do this for myself and that I grabbed hold of it with both hands and did most of it alone without any really strong relationships already in place. It would be nice to maybe do something similar with friends in the future but as for now, I’m quite happy to say I did this one all by myself.

It became apparent to me that family is really important and in Kenya, families are much larger than the ones found back in the UK. Many families have four or more children and this is the case even if money, food and supplies are a struggle to get hold of. Love is everywhere and this love is shone onto us as visitors whenever we come in contact with the kind and generous Kenyan people. No matter how little they have they are always willing to show their appreciation for your company and do not hesitate in showering you with their love and gratefulness.

I feel very blessed to have had all the support and love that I did receive before, during and now that I have home safely in England. My time in Kenya saw me become friends with people who I was meeting for the first time and everyone made it very easy for me to feel part of this new crowd and make live happily. I received a lot of support from people back home in the emails online and with letters I collected through the post and it was so great to know I had lots of people routing for me back at home. I got calls from friends and the messages I did received were sometimes from people I really didn’t expect to take as much interest in me as they did. People I didn’t know that well were continuously praising me for my success and giving me that little more confidence and encouragement to stick it out to the best of my ability. I really have to say how grateful I am for all the friends and family that have been letting me know they have been praying for me and to all those who I have never met that showed interest and care in me, I am so thankful. I really cannot express how important and influential all the attention I received was but what I can say is that all this love really made my stay a lot more enjoyable and rewarding.

Coming back home leaving the compound in Kimilili, I had one last journey through the country and sat looking out of the window as morning broke and the sun rose up into the sky. In a matter of minutes the Kenyan morning mist and darkness had vanished and the sun was out shining and filling the sky with its radiant glow. It was beautiful and just what I needed for my final morning in Africa. So I made it successfully through all airports using the instructions Simon had kindly written out for me and embarked my journey into the air with a wide variety of films to watch and also the opportunity of some sleep if I wanted it. I spent some of the time thinking back over my time, sketching and also reading a card I had received from John and Emily just before the left for their continued adventure. I sat in my window seat reading through this jam packed two page card that was filled with memories and small stories from our times spent together. I’m a strong lover of quotes and it was really nice to see the way John had left me reference to a part of the Bible that just summed up my trip as a whole. Reading brought a tear to my eye and I did get emotional in places, but overall it was a great feeling and reinforced the fact that all the friendships I made were special and that even if I didn’t have them written own on paper, what I had done would be remembered for a life time.

All in all I had a blast and I did something that both I and the people who will be helped by it will remember forever. I have really learned and gained so much more from my time than I can ever write down in a blog or that I can ever express to someone who has asked me to describe my experience. I don’t think you can even fully prepare someone for Africa and I really do think it is one of those things where you actually have to be there and see it for yourself. Thinking back to the weeks before I was actually in Kenya, I remember people telling me that the whole experience would change my life. I never really knew what to expect from that comment and wasn’t sure whether I would change dramatically in the way I was or whether my personality would take a different direction. From being there and living with so many wonderful and passionate people, I now realise for myself what it means when someone says “Going to Africa will change your life”.

From a guy who was once described as the “city boy who once he got off the plane in Kisumu looked as though he wouldn’t last the whole three months”, I thank you once again for all the things we have shared and all the love and support you have given me. I hope you really enjoyed my blogs and even if I’m not the best writer in the whole world you got a lot from reading them. Thank you for paying so much attention to my journey in Africa and in my life as well. I’ve had a great time writing for you all and it has been a pleasure to be able to give you a piece of what I have been seeing across the world. Thank you to Matthew and the family I was with and also to the students who came and spent some time with me during and towards the end of my stay. I’ve had the best time and I wouldn’t change it for anything. God Bless all those out there working hard in Kenya and we should all keep praying and wishing them the best possible future. Ill look forward to seeing everyone in the future and I am also looking forward to meeting those of IcFEM I have not already met.

Thank you for all your efforts and I really do hope if you haven’t already, you get the same opportunity as me to go to Kenya, meet the people and have the best experience that will definitely, change your life forever.

God Bless once again xx Hebrews 13:8

Blog #29

2007-08-21T13:44:00.001+03:00

It definitely feels weird to know that this time next week ill be at home doing who knows what, but know I won’t be here surrounded by all the lovely people and the so many friends I’ve made over the past three months. The time has just flown by and it doesn’t seem like that long ago that I was here on my first night, anxious on how the next 90 odd days were going to turn out. I know for sure this week is going to be an extremely emotional one and I reckon I'm going to be quite busy, here, there an everywhere, saying my goodbyes and see you soon. I know for sure that I would really like to come back here and once again see the people I have really grown to love. I never felt this bad about leaving England, but I guess I always knew I would return sometime soon. I remember sitting in the guesthouse lounge two weeks ago thinking how it was going to take forever for me to be close to my final day, but I was completely wrong and time is now ticking faster than that on Linford Christies watch.

I had been getting a bit behind with my blog recently and with this being my final week I was able to concentrate on this for most of Monday morning whilst the others spent their day in Dreamland and other places. After lunch I met with Antony where we head into town and hit the shops, searching for some food as tonight we were going to his place so that we could spend an evening eating together. Grabbing some green grams, rice and pepper we had almost collected our ingredients for tonight’s dinner. I then spent most of the afternoon in the office sitting talking with Caspar and Emma whilst continuing to work a little on my laptop.

Meeting Tony at 5, I quickly rode to the guesthouse to collect some extra clothes to keep me warm, as well as Dennis who was accompanying Tony and me. We rode along the muddy interior roads and shortly arrived at Tony’s house where we began to prepare dinner. I made my small contribution by washing up the pots and plates needed to use for our food in a small bucket with limited water, whilst the others organised themselves in the kitchen with the green grams and rice. We sat doing our various jobs as it began to get dark, with only a small gas lantern to brighten the room and also a radio playing some tunes from a national radio station. This whole evening’s activity reminded me slightly of camping, without being too disrespectful but with all of us pitching in for what was later a successful meal, it really felt comfortable and homely.

Once dinner was ready we called Festus and all sat together eating the well prepared meal we had knocked up in the last hour or so. It was delicious and we each had fair amounts to share. By now it was getting pitch black and it was probably best to head back home. At first we were a little hesitant whether we could manage with the bikes, but decided we could just about succeed and walked back pushing our bikes to the main muddy road using a very unreliable torch. Along the road home, Dennis had a slight unfortunate accident and fell off his bike. It was one of those moments where you really wanted to laugh as he too was laughing himself, however because he was wearing my relatively new jacket, I found it a little hard to find it fully amusing.

Back at the guesthouse the guys were just coming to the end of Cool Runnings so I joined them in the lounge and ironed a few items before bed.

Tuesday morning was pretty much even more chilled out and I had chance to catch up with more blogs and get them published. At lunch time I was seated in the guesthouse dining room with Ken and Valerie Jones who were staying for a few days as they were friends of Anne’s.

Back again at the guesthouse in the evening the guys began to watch Coach Carter on DVD so I stuck around for a little until going to bed before the end. It was quite unfortunate that the power cut off for a few seconds maybe five minutes before the film ended, because I heard the guys over in the lounge sigh as they had to reset the DVD player.

Wednesday morning found me sat in the last full morning devotion of my stay where all the devotion groups came together for one large message. I was blessed with the opportunity in giving a reading and was very wonderfully prayed for by John Wibbly as he, accompanied by Solomon, Matthew and Edward laid their hands on me. I was kneeling down as they spoke so many kind words about my stay and also as they wished me a safe and pleasant journey home and through life. I was quite touched by the care and love they presented me with and it made me feel good to know my stay had for every second been appreciated.

After spending a little time at the office I decided I should go back to the guesthouse and start packing as I knew Thursday could be my main day for saying goodbyes and I wanted to be prepared and ready so I could relax and take every final moment in. Most of my things were soon neatly stacked and pressed together with only a small number of remaining items, like my sleeping clothes left to pack. Before returning to the office after dinner I sat talking with the Dutch girls and Mark for a while, soaking my feet and absorbing the sun.

The guys wanted one final taste of the fine food that is from Kim’s Dishes so we dashed into town just making it under shelter before the rain came down. Tony, Matthew and I occupied one table whilst Dennis and some others took their seats else where in the packed out café. We waited around until the rain stopped which probably lasted around 40 minutes. The sky was from this time onwards gloomy and more or less stayed like this until it became dark.

This evening we had been invited to Elizabeth’s house for a meal and as we had not been able to make it there after weeks of invites, we though this was the last opportunity to visit so we took Patrick and the Mission landrover and headed to Buko. At the house we were served by the best food. Fried chicken, which I hadn’t eaten yet along my stay, and it was delicious, especially mixed with ketchup. We spent most of the evening chatting and the main subject of conversation was the wedding on Saturday that found one of Elizabeth’s sons the groom. It was getting late once again so we set off back in the landrover on the dark and empty roads.

Back in Kimilili we dropped off Patrick near his home and Dennis, who recently passed his test, got a treat and was able to drive the landrover safely back home

My final morning and everything that I did, I emphasised to the other guests that this was the last time I would do it. I had my last breakfast and my last morning devotion and I also had my last trip to the market in Kimilili town. We wandered round as the Dutch team got their tour and at the same time looked for two old bikes to use to make a wheelchair. They were successful in finding two ex boda-boda bicycles to use as parts for their project so they walked with them by they side from the market back to the guesthouse.

Back at the office I purchased some animal carvings and just after id packed away my two, Robert presented my with a giraffe carving as a goodbye gift from him. I was very happy with the gift and told him it was from one technician to another and that I would certainly take it to my work in England and have a part of Africa with my as I worked.

After lunch I took a trip to Marks house to see where he lived and have a little chat with him properly before I left. It was nice to see his small but comfortable home but unfortunately his wife and child were away so I didn’t get to meet them this time.

A week previously I spotted a key ring that said I LOVE AFRICA on it and I was really disappointed when I didn’t have the chance to make the purchase as it suited things so well. I spent some of the afternoon with Dennis going to the house of the man who makes them and without any luck left continuing to visit Helen, the other cook at the guesthouse.

In the late afternoon I managed to speak with Pamela, someone I worked along side with during the holiday club and she was going to attempt to track me a key ring down before I left. I gave her the money and off she went where she would get back to me later.

At the end of the day it was time to leave the office for the last time and at this stage it was also time to say my final goodbyes to Tony a dear friend I had made and had good memories with over my stay. I felt to get a bit emotional and it was quite hard to say goodbye and explain how much of a pleasure it was to have met him. I then walked back towards the guesthouse where I stopped off to see Mike and Edgar one last time before I left.

I made it home by the Simba where I was presented with my I LOVE AFRICA key ring and it made my day. It had been collected for me and just moments before was passed to Matthew to deliver it to me before I left. Tonight I would be eating over at the house for my final meal so I had to try and fit in as many things as I could do before I proceeded over to the house as it was now approaching 6pm. I went into the guesthouse lounge and met with a new lady from Holland who was with her husband and they were staying for a few days. Spending some time with the five I had been spending a lot of time with over the past couple of weeks, I sat them down and said thank you to them and wished them all good luck along their stay. It was kind of hard to imagine that this could be the last time I would see all of them if I wasn’t to visit them wherever they live round the world, but at the same time it made me feel good that I had positive things to say and that I had made some good friends.

Matthew and I took a trip to Mount Crest for one last soda and spent some time chilling and had a nosey at one of the guestrooms they had to offer. We soon made our way back in the dark where I was dreading eating over at the house as I knew it could get emotional.

At the house we all sat around in the dark as the power had just suddenly gone out on us. We had a couple of candles distributed around the room which gave off just enough light to see each other and the food we were eating. I ate some traditional food with a full table of people and then we all went to sit around the family seating area to talk and pray.

Everyone was so kind and had lots of nice things to say to me wishing me fare well. I also added with a little something I wanted to say and thanked everyone for their love and support over my three month stay. I really thought it would be emotional for me but once I was seated and begun speaking, everything just became calm and I was filled with happiness rather than sadness. It was sad to be leaving but I knew I could and should be glad to have made so many new friends and memories and not dwell on the fact it was now coming to an end. It was now time to leave the house for the final time and leave for the guesthouse to be up early in the morning.

Back at the guesthouse the guys had been waiting up for me to say that last minute goodbyes. They had spent most of their evening sitting in the dark eating previously prepared popcorn and wanted to get in a few words before I went to bed. They were all so nice and said their goodbyes with handshakes and hugs and then we all went our separate ways so that I could sleep and be up for 4am to leave with Hosea in the Taxi.

God Bless x

Blog #28

2007-08-15T15:26:00.000+03:00

ATTENTION ALL READERS

Over the past couple of days I have uploaded a couple of blogs.
Check out my full week and also my final weekend.
I will possibly add something for my final few days and also when I'm home I will post a few more with a conclusion.

Asanti and see you soon x

Blog #27

2007-08-14T16:05:00.000+03:00

Being my last weekend here in Kenya I decided to take the opportunity to spend some quality time with my new good friend Tony and do something that you definitely need to do if you come to Kenya. On Friday I would be returning straight home and with not having done much travelling throughout my trip, I thought it was necessary to jump on a Matatu to Kitale and go on a small Safari and see the animals. Admittedly the visit didn’t go according to plan, however it was successful and never the less an equally enjoyable experience.

Peeping though the window at 6.45am, I said a quick goodbye to John and Emily as they left with their bags in hand to get the bus to Kamukuywe.

After breakfast I waited around shortly and then left with Matthew, Emma and the four Dutch students in the same direction towards Dreamland. Along the muddy and very slippery roads I met Tony as he rode along on his bike almost ready for our journey to Kitale. I walked as he ventured along clogging his types with mud and we made our way to the office to get my bag which had my camera that I would definitely need for my day trip to see the animals.

At the office I found my bag locked away in the cyber office but fortunately Robert was not far behind almost reaching the compound to come and unlock. Grabbing my bag and camera and leaving my laptop, Tony and I set off walking to town to catch a Matatu.

The rain had been quite heavy over the past few days and especially the night before so the roads were very muddy and my trousers and trainers were caked in mud from only about half an hours walking so far. Making our way to where the bus stage is, we waited for a Matatu that was going in our direction and that wasn’t completely rammed with passengers. After some time of waiting we had no luck in finding a Matatu that could get us to Kitale comfortably. It was now approaching 11am and after a few more minutes of waiting we were saved by a car driven by someone Tony knew that was heading in the same direction. Jumping into the car paying slightly more for the convenience of using the car (100 shillings rather than 70), I sat in the middle at the back where we drove quite rapidly making our way to Kitale within the hour.

My first task whilst being in Kitale was to get some money from the bank so that I could treat Tony for his company, so we found the Barclays bank and checked in at the hole in the wall. It’s amazing to see the difference between the facilities available in each town. Kitale was much more developed than the town Kimilili was but compared with England it was still very far behind.

Once I had some cash in my pocket we found ourselves a nice reliable café and had a little breakfast before me embarked on our journey to Delta Cresent National Park. This park was famous for its wonderful wild life and I was looking forward to being able to see many types of animals such as Giraffes and Rhino’s.

Walking to find a taxi to take us to the National Park, I found myself feeling like a little child who forgot to use the toilet back at the café. It wasn’t hard to find somewhere to go as Tony spoke to an attendant at a petrol station who kindly gave us a key to the toilets available there. Once I had been we found ourselves a taxi at the much cheaper price of 500 shillings one way to the Park, rather than the 1200 and 1000 shillings we had been quoted from other drivers hanging around.

Making our way to the Park we travelled along a road where we found more holes than if we would have inspected a siv. The pot holes were huge and all filled with water from the rainfall the night before. Once again I felt a little like I was in a rap video, bouncing up and down as the front and back tyres dipped into the uneven surfaces that lay around us. After travelling what was no longer than 15 minutes we found ourselves faced with a road that was at least ten times worse than the poor one we had just come along, infact in the distance we saw a 30 odd seater bus only just making its way out of the mud. What could we do? Well, we had two options. One, we could continue on a lot further down the road with a slim chance of finding another road that was in a better condition and have to pay more, or two, head back to the town and find something else to do for the afternoon. After a little discussion we thought rather than wasting both time and money, our best bet was to head back to town where there was a museum that occupied different smaller animals that we could instead take a look at. On the way back to Kitale Moses, our taxi driver, told us about another place that was slightly similar to the Delta Cresent National Park which also had some animals and amusements that we could visit. Instead of visiting the museum we decided we would head 3km out of Kitale in the opposite direction and visit our second best option.

So 30 minutes later and 700 shillings poorer, we found ourselves at Kitale Nature Conservancy http://www.kitalenature.org/ . It had just begun to rain so we decided to sit down inside the restaurant area until it was dry. After maybe 10 minutes we decided to venture down the slipper steep slanted decking to find out the prices to look round at the animals. We asked the guy who was sat at reception, which was a wooden table underneath a small improvised marquee, where we found there were three different prices depending on what you were. If you were a Kenyan Citizen the entrance fee was 100 shillings, if you were a Resident you paid 500 shillings and if you were a Non-Citizen you had to pay what was 10 USD. The price for Tony was 100 shillings and after some explaining I was admitted as a Resident so both fee’s together came to 600 shillings. The prices were slightly high for anyone who wasn’t typical Kenyan but there was no way I was not going to look round having spending so much time and money so far coming here.

Paying and setting off on our mini adventure with our brochure in hand, the first animal we saw was a small Dear. We were then faced, as we walked further through a gap in the fence, with many deformed and disabled animals. We saw goats with only three legs, ducks with extra legs, a sheep with overly large testicles and the ugliest cow in the world. This cow must have been so depressed with four horns on its head tilted at weird angles with an extra eye on the side of his face. Just to top it all off the cow had a mouth that was overlapping and it really looked as if he had just had one too many rounds with Mike Tyson.

We continued on looking at the various animals that occupied the large scope of land and wandered round until we came across a small lake with a couple of boats for people to ride. One of the boats was already in use, so Tony and I decided to have a go, not forgetting to real the boat rules first. We both carefully climbed into the boat, Tony at the front and I towards the back and we both used the paddles provided to steer the boat to where we wanted it to go. We spent some time chatting and sailing around this small lake, once of twice crashing slowly into the sides. When we had done we tied the boat back in its place and headed back round to take a look at the Emus. There weren’t that many Emus around and with the ground surrounding their fenced in compound, it was hard to get very close. We stood a while waiting to see if they would do anything cool but they didn’t really do much apart from prance around splashing in the mud. Leaving them to continue with their fun, we walked down to the bridge which was unfortunately mostly out of bounds due to the overflowing river.

With no way of getting across the bridge we had to turn back and finish our tour with the Nature Trail and the Model Caves. The Nature Trail was equally as muddy as everywhere else if not worse and only had more Dears for us to see. The caves were well sculptured into rooms for children to play. They were decorated in a typical African style but were very dark with the lack of electricity. There was once particular section to educate children on Global Warming which was again well decorated and laid out.

We had spent just over an hour looking round and both mine and Tony’s feet were cake and soaked from the boggy areas along the expedition. Calling Moses, we were soon picked up and in a taxi back into the main part of Kitale to continue our afternoon with whatever else we planned to do. I really wanted to try Pizza but most of the places we asked didn’t seem to be serving them. Eventually after buying credit and calling Matthew to see if he knew anywhere, we settled for Chips and Sausage with some side salad and lots of hot chilli sauce.

Jumping in a Matatu we made our way back home to Kimilili. Once we arrived from our hour journey home, Tony took me to a typical African barber shop where I could have another experience of having my hair cut by a Kenyan. I was a little hesitant at first because I knew if they messed it up that I wouldn’t have much time to grow it back to a decent length, but never the less I sat through it as the barber shaved and styled my sideburns to a point. It was an experience and to say it was the first time the barber had cut a Mzungu’s hair, he did a pretty nice job. Once Tony had also had a nice trim I headed back to the guesthouse and made it there just in time for dinner.

The guys told me about their days as I sat trying to force my food down me, having eating only a couple of hours previously. We spent most of the evening just sitting and talking and soon went to bed after a long and well turned out day.

Sunday morning I woke up for breakfast slightly disappointed that we weren’t having sausage haha. We all got ready for church and set off walking to St James. Emma had received a lift from Anne and I saw them, along with the Dutch team on foot, out of the compound and up the muddy track. I was a little behind but soon as I caught up I saw the state that both Marlene and Ilken were left in after Anne had driven past them spraying mud accidentally onto their cream trousers and skirt.

Sitting through a service where Emma was warmly welcomed, I then began to leave with the Dutch to walk back to the guesthouse. Emma was sticking around as she was due to attend another service and just as I was leaving she delivered a message from Anne. Anne regularly lends us her service book and we had left it in the isle so I rushed back to collect it and give it to her. By the time I was ready to leave the others were already quite far ahead so I hung back and got a lift back with Anne in her car. Getting dropped off by the offices, I walked back in what looked like it was going to be a nice sunny day.

Back at the guesthouse the guys who stayed in the main guesthouse building found themselves locked out. I could fortunately get in my room, so I collected my last batch of washing together and began with some washing in the sun. They soon had a key and were outside with me cleaning their dirty clothes too. Washing today was a big social event and there wasn’t many spaces left on the lines once we had all hung out our things. We continued this up to lunch then all sat together in the dining room.

Slouching on the white plastic chairs on the balcony Caspar, Ilken and I played some cards whilst time passed in the afternoon. We decided we would all take a walk into town and maybe grab a bite to eat at Mount Crest and then towards 4pm head over to Kamusinga to watch a weekly football match that took place on the fields there. Mount Crest was very busy upstairs because of the football on TV, so we sat downstairs and ordered some soda and food. Marlene tried a Samosa, Ilken a Mandazi and I went all out and got chips, sausage and once again chilli sauce, I loved it.

Walking back we bumped into Mark, then headed to watch the football for a while. Talking with Tony’s younger brother, Festus, we noticed that the dark rain clouds were heading our way so we decided to, instead of hanging round, move quickly back to the guesthouse. We did manage to avoid the rain and got back very quickly and not long after our return we all together again with Emma coming back from her long day of services.

No power in the evening meant we were sat in the dark for dinner. We also continued over in the guesthouse sat around talking about various things in our lives. It was nice sat again in the candle light, but towards 9pm we were reunited with power. With nothing on television after numerous times of flicking through all six channels, we decided to go to bed with many of us tired from the lazy days.

4 days left x Stay tuned for maybe a few updates over the next few days. x

Blog #26

2007-08-14T09:04:00.000+03:00

This week has been all about laughter and having a good time and I think it’s safe to say that Matthew, John, Emily and the four Dutch students have played a very large part in making so many valuable contributions to my last days in Kimilili. Caspar is just a complete legend with his antics and constant hilarious comments, which keeps me laughing for hours and the other three equally help in keeping the conversations flowing and amusing. John is just an overall awesome guy who inspires me so much with his commitment to his work and also his attitude and way of encouraging people. Emily is just as cool and I think I can honestly say that I couldn’t have chosen a better couple to have had around me along my experience here in Africa. I think I speak for everyone who has been blessed with their company over the past couple of weeks when I say they will be truly missed and that the place will definitely not be the same without them. I’m so glad I have made such amazing friends and I will look forward to seeing them soon sometime in the near future.

Monday morning was an opportunity for Matthew to fill in the Dutch students who hadn’t yet been briefed on the goings on in this part of Africa, so I stayed back at the guesthouse leaving Matthew to an empty office for his meeting. I spent most of the morning hanging around, washing and sitting until lunch time then returned to the office for some time in the afternoon. Today I was particularly tired so towards the end of the day I left the office slightly early and returned home for an afternoon nap before dinner.

Back at the house I heard the piano going so I nipped into the house so see who was producing the nice sounds. On entry I saw Naomi sat working the keys and asked her to teach me a little more than I already knew. We spent some time trying to master a short tune, where I played the main tune whilst Naomi added extra notes to flower it up a bit. It was fun and I think I can still remember how to play it so maybe if I get myself a nice keyboard when I get home, I may have the foundations to learn a little more. I tried sleeping after this but I couldn’t really get to sleep with my mind racing over lots of little irrelevant things. I got up to watch television but as I switched on the box, the power suddenly failed on me.

We had our first evening devotion with Tony this evening and he was very clear and sent us a message that was short, precise and it meant a lot to us for his company.

Tuesday morning there was no power and with my schedule beginning to get less busy I had the opportunity to join in with other things going on around the compound such as the Holiday Club. John was leading the morning session and at about 9am he found himself at the front of the hall faced with many children all wanting to be entertained whilst the other main leaders finished their early morning meetings. I wouldn’t exactly say I came to the rescue but I helped aid John as he so wonderfully taught the children a song with actions, which was written on the blackboard behind him. The theme for this Holiday Club was “Step by step with Jesus”, so he had decided to teach the children a couple of verses from the song “I want to walk with Jesus Christ”. John very professionally had made up some actions to the song which found them doing all kinds of hand movements to represents words such as “joy” and “complete control” and I had even helped suggest one or two, involving some moves that looked very similar to something you would find in a typical boy band video. Throughout the morning, until the hall was split into groups which were taken to different classrooms, I stuck around and stood at the front of the hall feeling a bit like a silly presenter on an early morning children’s television show. It was good fun and would have been even more rewarding if I wasn’t still feeling tired, but never the less John seemed grateful for my company and his first morning was successful.

I left John to teach some stories from the Bible and left to go back to the guesthouse to sleep as I felt that if I didn’t have some rest now I would probably go insane. I had a couple of hours rest until lunch and woke up feeling still very tired but soon recovered and felt a lot better.

After lunch I met with John who was at this time teaching the children some games that they could play on the open grass areas of the compound. The first game they learnt and played was “Stuck in the mud” which is like a very similar game to “Tag”, where once you are tagged by the appropriate person, you have to stand still until someone relieves you by crawling under your legs.

After some time of playing this they moved to another area and began to play the game “40 40”. This game basically had one seeker who would stand by the “safe point”, count to possibly 20 and then go looking for the rest the players who have previously hidden. If someone is spotted by the seeker then the seeker will run to the “safe point” tree and say “40, 40, I see you” and then the name of the person they have spotted. The children had a lot of fun with this and some were better than others at hiding. Some hid far away and never peeked out once, whilst others always hung close by and were constantly spotted. As a result of poor hiding places and maybe a lack of understand of the game, the quote of this particular day had to be “40, 40 I see you John”. One boy who was much older and bigger than the majority of children playing was called John and he was forever being spotted in his bright yellow shirt. The poor guy was nearly always first to be spotted but luckily he was saved from captivity with some saviours making it to the tree before the seeker and announcing “40, 40, save all”.

Leaving the area in which we played we spotted a large toad hopping around towards an old shed. As John nearly trod on it, I decided I would take a picture and then leave it to continue its mission to wherever it was that it was going.

Back round with the children before they left for the day, I thought I would join in with some of the children and allow them to assist me as I skipped. They had a long rope with one child holding one end and another at the alternate side, and I stood in the middle jumping when the time was right. Everyone knows that white men can’t jump, but on this occasion I was determine to be successful at my task. Jumping higher and higher every time to avoid the rope sweeping my feet, I soon found myself trying even harder to succeed and after a while slightly hurt my back.

Back at the guesthouse on the balcony, Caspar was in the early stages of having his hair shaved off using both scissors and a beard trimmer to get the correct length. I watched as his hair went from quite long to almost as short as mine and then later assisted to tidy his back and sides up, being the professional I am. The blue bucket he used to collect the falling hair had a tidy amount stored in it in which he picked a piece that he would send to his girlfriend back home in a letter. The little romantic looked pretty cool with his new look and I’m sure he would now be much more comfortable when the sun decides to show its face.

After Ughali for dinner we were joined by Tony for evening devotion and tonight he decided to bring two of his friends along. Lambert who I already knew and Sarah another lady from his group came to join in and sing and assist with the meeting. Lambert used the guitar and we sang a few songs and then Tony gave another one of his meaningful and well presented messages. As the meeting ended we lost our power so we sat around in the dark waiting for its return. I discussed a few things with Sarah where she told me her cousins who are now studying in the UK, attended the same church in Bradford as I have been attending. She told me how she enjoys singing and is involved in a group with Tony and Lambert and goes around with them spreading the word and using music and songs to encourage and entertain listeners. We soon broke into song and afterwards I took it upon myself to sing a few popular songs in which a few people joined in with. John strummed away on the guitar along to “As long as you love me” by the Backstreet Boys, “Flying without wings” by Westlife and also broke into “When you say nothing at all” by Ronan Keating. Lambert even involved himself in a little rendition of “Walking away” by Craig David, however as most of us didn’t know the words it wasn’t as successful as we would have liked. All in all this evening was great and it was lovely to sit around especially in the candle light singing and discussing many different topics. The guys eventually left from a lively session using a torch kindly lent by Merel.

The morning session for the Holiday Club on Wednesday again found me helping John with the actions and playing a few games of “Simon says” and “Heads shoulders, knees and toes”. The kids loved it and it was really nice to be involved enthusiastically with everyone. It’s very rewarding to see the children smiling as you are teaching them and the staff around watching were very impressed with the way things were unfolding with Johns teaching in the club.
After the morning session with John I skipped across to the office and did a little more work and wrote some blog. Not long passed and I was back with John assessing some drawings that the children had done to illustrate a story from the bible. We chose a winner whose piece was very detailed and had some good artistic skills and then sat discussing a few things. I spent the good part of an hour talking and walking with John back to the guesthouse for my lunch and it was really encouraging to be able to speak with someone who could appreciate what I had to say and who could respond in such a way that didn’t make me feel under educated and stupid. He is a top guy and once again I will miss his company but I'm sure there will be many more inspiring conversations to come.

After lunch I took an expedition down into town with Emily but not until we had first written out a list of ingredients we would need for our plan to prepare dinner. Emily and I had discussed that it would be a nice idea to show our appreciation to the staff that had worked so hard over the past weeks to ensure our stay was comfortable and that we were well catered for. We wanted to repay them and instead of them cooking a meal for us, we wanted to prepare something for them so that they could come along and eat with us. In town we first hit Risiki’s supermarket and got some ingredients for our meal. We had decided we were going to prepare a chicken curry, as we wanted to see how the Kuku was prepared and also wanted to have chapattis along side it to prove we could make them from the instructions Helen so kindly gave us. Grabbing curry powder, rice, flour and many more items we dashed around the supermarket and left for the small market at the junction where we collected our fruit and veg. Once we had got most of our items it was time to find the fun part of the whole process and collect two live kuku’s to take back to the guesthouse. We were sent back and forth to many different places as we asked where we could get Kuku. I think some people thought we wanted a meal so as a result we were directed to many restaurants and cafes. Eventually after finding a couple of places where they were trying to sell us the birds at a price associated with the colour of our skin, we found somewhere with reasonable prices that allowed us to have two Kuku’s put in a box for just short of 600 Shillings.

Back in the kitchen of the guesthouse where the time was now approaching 4pm, we realised we weren’t going to have time to prepare the meal today as initially planned. Instead of trying to rush and probably not being successful in completing it on time, we thought it would be best to just prepare a pudding this evening instead. Cutting up two loafs of bread into quarters and removing the crusts; we added this to some raisins and milk and made some bread and butter pudding. I put and left this in the oven just before dinner and Emily removed it at the right time for us to eat it during our devotion. We shared the pudding which I admittedly wasn’t too keen on at first, but everyone seemed to enjoy it and the tray it was served on was completely finished.

After morning devotion on Thursday morning with no Matthew as he had gone to collect new visitors in Kisumu, I came straight back to the guesthouse with Emily at 9am. This morning devotion was taken by Emily and was presented extremely well. She was so clear and her message was fresh and I think she did an amazing job of passing across the message that Jesus the same all over the world. Back at the guesthouse it was now time to prepare the Kuku which meant that we would have to kill them first where I was quite hesitant if I could actually do it.

Mark began with the first Kuku, leaving me to hold the remaining one upside down by its legs. He sat on the chair and demonstrated how the whole killing process should be done. Watching his every move, I was beginning to question even more if I could actually perform as it looked slightly gruesome and challenging. After the first bird was down, it was my turn to be seated and step up. Encouraged by the fact that Matthew had done this once before and I wanted to be equally as brave, I calmly placed one foot on the Kuku’s wings, one on it’s two legs and held onto it neck avoiding getting pecked by its beak. All of a sudden the whole task became even more real as I began plucking some feathers from his neck where I would begin sawing with the knife I had gripped in my other hand. Once the feathers were removed I began to cut and felt so mean but had to be strong and confident. Slightly overwhelmed and wanting to finish as quickly as possible, I mistakably cut all the way through the neck taking off the head which rolled under my seat on the floor. Shocked and with nothing left to hold I released the Kuku which started to move with blood squirting out. Mark shouted to stand on it to contain the blood so I placed my foot firmly onto its body. Soon it was over and they were both dead ad we could now begin to prepare them in a form that we could use for our curry.

Placing them in boiling water allowed us to remove the feathers from their body. Once they were stripped we started to remove their insides by taking off the back end and pulling out the organs with our hands. The first Kuku popped out a developed egg that unfortunately fell and smashed on the floor, but also had three other smaller eggs still left inside. We pulled out the smelly intestines that nearly made me sick and began cutting in appropriate places. We soon had a pan full of wings, legs and other parts to the Kuku that we left to later continue preparing.
After cleaning the kitchen of blood and guts, I head across to the office to see how John was getting on. At this point he was no where to be seen as he was very busy with his tasks, so I continued working in the office on some letters and things. It was soon lunch time and I arrived back to find that we were having a slightly different, more tradition meal for lunch and found mashed banana’s, chestnut sauce and cabbage all presented on our plates. We waited for some other guests to arrive but as they took longer than expected, we began to eat at the table with more places laid out than usual. The quote for this particular afternoon was “We could hide it in the plants but they aren’t real”, so I’ll leave it to you to decide whether we all enjoyed all of our meal.

Towards the end of our lunch we were joined by Anne, Solomon, some visitors and other people from the Mission where Emily and I helped Mark prepare and serve the newly arrived guests. The visitors were only stopping for the day as they had come to Kenya for a wedding at the weekend and were on their last days here in Africa.

I spent the afternoon kneading dough and separating and preparing chapatti. It took me a while but I got the whole process right at least and made some nice oily bases that would later be re-rolled and fried. Emily began mixing the Kuku with curry powder and other ingredients and left it to cook whilst she went for a walk. My afternoon was taken up mostly by the chapatti and I was successful in carrying them and placing them into the frying pan. I only made two square ones, which were intentional done and made some impressive round ones without any guidance by anyone.

This meal coincided nicely with it being the birthday of two of the Dutch students. Marlene was 21 and Ilken was 23 and the room in where we would eat was nicely decorated by Mark with some decorations provided by Caspar and Merel. There were balloons, heart shaped paper and small Holland flags pinned around the table and it looked very festively laid out. Unfortunately Matthew and Helen could not attend to see what we had done, however we did have the company of both Rose and Mark who made the evening a complete success. Even though we were sat with no power and only had the gas lamp lighting the room, it was nice to sit around talking and laughing whilst at the same time the birthday boy and girl received their presents.

After dinner once the lights came back on, I sat with the guys and girls from Holland in the guesthouse. Caspar and I decided to play the stick game Mikado and we couldn’t stop laughing whenever a mistake was made. I think we believed the game was pretty pointless and the fact that we weren’t very good made us laugh and almost cry even more. I have such a fun time and laugh just being in the presence of Caspar and he always knows how to get an entertaining atmosphere. I don’t exactly what makes him so funny but think it’s possibly a mix between what he says and the accent he says it in. We sat around waiting for possibly some new arrivals but were pretty sure that we would be in bed before they came back.

In the morning I woke up extra early to continue learning how to be more productive in the kitchen and assisted Mark making pancakes. I helped mix the dough and placed it in the pan to cook. I was preparing for new visitors this morning and was keen to do a good job. John, the newest arrival who is a professor here to teach many communities about agriculture, was the first be seated for breakfast. Emma, another new visitor, was still very tired so didn’t make it up for breakfast but never the less still had a good atmosphere with it being John and Emily’s final breakfast with us.

I walked with John and Emily quickly to morning devotion as it was their last one and they didn’t want to be too late. During the devotion the couple were prayed for and it was told that they would be dearly missed. It was quite emotionally really even though they had only been here a couple of weeks and I was beginning to worry how I would feel when it was finally my turn to come back.

Back at the guesthouse I found Merel and Caspar working on their analysis stage for their project. Their project whilst being here is to design and develop a wheelchair that will be suitable for the Kenyan conditions but most importantly had to be hand powered. They sketched up some designs and also began to write, in English, the problems with the current system. They asked me to check over their English and I suggested where changes needed to be made. Overall what they had written was very good and I'm pretty sure if I was in their position, even with training my Dutch wouldn’t be half as good.Soon after I was done chatting and helping Caspar and Merel, I left with Matthew and Dennis into town before proceeding to the office to look over a few notes. In town Dennis went to have his hair cut at an African barber shop just across from Risiki’s, where the shop occupied posters of famous black people with cool and crazy hair styles. It cost him 20 shillings to have a sharp shaven cut then he agreed to help me with my notes on the education system here in Kenya. At the office it was hard to keep focussed as the office I am based is in now beginning to become the same old and I'm way too familiar with my surroundings. Packing up my laptop I was about to leave when I was called into the main hall to set up a projector for a seminar that was just about to be held.

Back at the guesthouse I sat in the corner of the balcony with Dennis where he read over my previous notes and marked where changes needed to be made. We talked over how the system is and changed my notes to make a better account of exactly how the system works. Once I had finished I began to discuss a few of my notes with John.

At this time Emma had arrived from wandering around on day one of her stay and I had my first encounter with her. First impressions are that she is a nice, sweet, pretty girl that will definitely work well with the other guests along the three weeks of her stay. Today we had an extra lively lunch filling Matthew and the new arrivals in on the previous day about the killing of the chicken and the meal.

After lunch I sat with John and Emily on the balcony as they made phone calls trying to arrange some accommodation for their remaining days travelling. They managed to find somewhere and we had a laugh about what they could find when they got there. I soon left them to get on with their packing and left for the office to continue with some work.

At the office the power was on and off so it was quite hard to do anything on the computer. After some time I decided I would go for a ride on the bike maybe into town and then back again. On the way I bumped into Dennis who was on his way back from seeing his cousin off on a bus to visit some people and we decided to drop my bike off and take a walk into town for one last snack at Kim’s Dishes before he left for Kakamega on Monday. On the way we spotted the Dutch group sat outside Mount Crest having a drink waiting for another shop to draft up some details they needed for their project. Dennis and I had a nice chat at Kim’s and ate some good food then returned back to the guesthouse around 4pm.

Back at the guesthouse I sat talking with Caspar and Emma whilst the other committed Dutch students did some exercises using skipping ropes and also doing press ups. The girls were better than the boys and with Merel being a footballer, she was very determine to keep fit over her 11 weeks here in Kimilili.

This evening John and Emily were eating at the house so they hung around showing off their new attire as we tucked into our Friday dinner. Once we had finished all of us went and sat in the guesthouse talking before John and Emily left for the family house. They didn’t know what time they would be back from the house but we promised them we would stay up and talk with them when they returned, as they would be off early in the morning so none of us would have said a proper goodbye. We lounged around watching Extreme Makeover programmes on the television whilst waiting for the couple to return. Eventually after a couple of hours of eating and fellowship with the family they returned ready to say their goodbyes.

It was really sad to know that in the morning they would have left for their trip across Africa and that they would be no longer entertaining us with their company here at the guesthouse. They presented me with a card they had wrote which I am saving to read at a later date, maybe on the plane, and we hugged and wished each other a safe and enjoyable journey. There wasn’t very much to say apart from that they would be dearly missed and every second spent with them way appreciated, then we all departed our separate ways and left for bed.

I had mentioned I would get up in the morning early to see them off but they insisted otherwise. Maybe ill just wish them a quick farewell in the morning if I am successful in catching them.

1 week left x

Blog #25

2007-08-08T11:17:00.000+03:00

So far along my stay I have had very many experiences that I feel privileged to have seen and that I will certainly remember forever. I have fellowshipped deep within the interior parts of the communities, I have been able to contribute and help build homes as well as peoples lives, I’ve been able to visit the homes of many of my new friends and their family in and around Kimilili, and this weekend saw me attend Leonard’s traditional Kenyan wedding and experience a ceremony very different to your typical English service.

So after breakfast I got kitted up with my white shirt, black tie and smart suit trousers and made my way with the girls from the house to Kimilili Boys high school where the ceremony was going to be held. This morning Matthew was off early with the role of recording the ceremony at both the Bride and Grooms homes and also some of the ceremony at Kimilili Boys. He had left looking very smart in a lilac shirt with matching tie and felt also very privileged to attend and also be asked to do the recording. I left around 10am with Bithian, Joy, Naomi, Merriam, Rebecca and Lena and walked up and along to the high school, trying to avoid the wet and muddy patches as a result of the heavy rains the day and night before. The house was now very full with the schools all breaking up for the students well deserved holiday, so there were a lot more new people around and walking on to the service was an opportunity to talk and find out a little about each new face.

We arrived at the high school to what seemed like too early. There was hardly anyone present with only the guys setting up the keyboard equipment and a few small dancers ready and waiting just below the stage. I stood around talking and taking pictures with the girls until finally more people began to arrive and fill the up the hall that occupied many dust, turquoise benches.

Once the people had been shown to their seats by the Ushers, I spotted Matthew outside with his cameras taking pictures of both the lines that were to march in the hall with both the Bride and Groom. The dancers and people in the lines were dressed very smart and had lots of decorations on them including glitter, ribbons and flashing badges. After sometime the lines began to enter the hall and in first was the Groom with his nine other members leading the way. Leonard’s line had the dancers at the front and towards the back were some young boys and men. Among the young boys was Chris, Solomon’s son, who was dressed up very well in a grey suit and tie. It took them about 20 minutes to make their way from the back of the hall to the front as they walked very slow dancing and making what was definitely a big entrance. Following this, once the line had made its way to the front and the people were seated, in came the Bride with her line all dressed in very pretty pink and brown suits with glitter in their hair. They made an even bigger entrance which found them not even get a quarter of their way in after what was a long but interesting 15 minutes.

Having missed lunch and the ceremony starting two hours late at just after 1pm, Matthew and I decided to nip out and get a quick bite to eat and soda, as our tummies were rumbling and our concentration was beginning to drop. We made our way to the end of the road which joins on to the high school and stopped off at Spring’s café which was becoming our new regular dining place.

Arriving back 10 minutes later after settling our stomachs and re-hydrating ourselves, the Bride’s line still hadn’t arrived to the front of the hall. Soon enough though, both the Bride and Groom were now stood on the stage and were in the process of performing their vows. This part was in English with the traditional vows being spoken and it was nice to see two people going through their promises as I hadn’t seen this in a long time. After leaving the hall for some fresh air and a break from the Swahili speeches, I got a phone call from my good friend Aaron who called up just to say Hey. Speaking to him for a short time I then found myself following a few people back from the service just before it finished. The sky looked like it was going to rain so we made our way back quickly to the guesthouse, stopping off at the cyber to pick up a few things such as a heavy guitar and case.

Back at the guesthouse after a short rest, Emily and I helped Helen once again make the chapattis for Saturday evening’s meal. Helen was very tolerant whilst we attempted to help make a good job of the meal and I'm sure tried her best to keep a smile on her face as we so poorly rolled the chapattis.

Following dinner we spent the evening acting stupid, playing King of the Jungle with the new arrivals from Holland’s as maybe a way of breaking the ice. We sat discussing similarities and differences between the UK and Holland and talked about the different accents and how they had connotations with difference classes, especially in the UK. One of the guys from Holland pointed out that the guys from Oxford spoke more elegantly, where as I spoke Irish. It was quite a fun and enjoyable evening and we all left for bed much more confident in how well we were going to get on over the next few weeks.

Sunday morning we all attended St James church where there was a lot more Mazungu’s present than usual. We took up most of three rows in the church and sat through what was most an inspiring and interesting service. Unfortunately at the end the church was taken over by a mad man who was clearly not part of the church, but saw it as an opportunity to get some money out of the generous people who had attended. He had brought some eggs and was acting pretty crazy trying to give everyone an egg and get money from them for it. He even began to use children as a method of seeking funds, getting them out to the front and giving them eggs and insisting that others paid for them. I’m sure many of us were getting worked up and frustrated by the fact he was so insistent in getting money out of us and that he was using children as a weapon also. John quite boldly gave out some money just to get rid of the children from the front and to stop using them in such an embarrassing and manipulating way.

Back at the ranch before lunch I began to do some washing out on the grass. It was soon lunch time and I had almost finished, so I left a few things to soak and came back to them after I had eaten. Towards the middle of the afternoon I began writing up my blog on the laptop but soon decided to head to the offices with Matthew, John and Emily, so that they could look up a few things on the internet to organise something for their remaining days in Kenya. We weren’t at the office long and then left for Springs Café to be treated by “JF” and Emily to Chai and a Mandazi.

Arriving back just before dinner I went across to the house where the Chelsea, Manchester game was on the television. I watched this for only a few minutes but still managed to get a few reminded feelings of being back at home. Back in the guesthouse after dinner John, Emily and I sat around watching the Pianist on the DVD player until the end of the evening. I received a call from my family during this, so spent about 20 minutes on the phone to them breaking away from the film.

It had been a nice weekend, seeing new things and getting to know the new visitors a little. I knew I didn’t have long left to stay with them but never the less was very interested to find out as much as I could in the little time I would have left at the guesthouse with them.

See you sooner x

Blog #24

2007-08-06T14:26:00.000+03:00

These last few weeks have just flown by I’ll tell you that for free and I’ve now got only a couple of weeks left of my stay and then ill be back home resuming normal life my with family and friends in Halifax. So far it’s been an amazing experience and I tell you what, the arrival of new visitors is making it even better by the day. John and Emily have been awesome these past couple of weeks and it’s been really great to have them on board along side Matthew and the other people who have been around during my stay. Music has always been a passion of mine and it’s nice to have someone around who can play an instrument. We have been rocking out the tunes on an evening and I’ve also witnessed John leading worship in a way so that we can party like its 1999.

I woke up Monday morning and the power was very unpredictable. One minute the power would be on, the next it would be off, so the idea of having a shower was pretty much out of the window. I had breakfast with Matthew, John and Emily and then returned to my room extremely tired from a very poor nights sleep. I decided, as the power was now completely off, that I would go back to bed for a while to catch up on some sleep, so I crawled back under my cosy bed sheets and had a long sleep, waking up at 11.30am.

Waking up feely pretty much refreshed but extremely lazy, I got ready to finally start my day and head over to the guesthouse lounge and did some ironing. I stood watching some television whilst I ironed and waited for lunchtime to arrive. I had soon finished my two pairs of trousers and five T shirts and with only moments until I would be served lunch, I made my way to the kitchen area to speak to our brilliant chefs. The guys had not yet returned for lunch, so I decided rather than eat alone, I would wait for them to arrive and talk to Dennis whilst I was waiting. They guys must have been held up somewhere so after talking with Dennis whilst he did his washing for half an hour, I decided to give up waiting and went to eat.

Most of the afternoon was spent in the office, tiding up my project and tying up any loose ends. Back at the guesthouse we had our dinner and were supposed to have our first session of evening devotion with the new guests, but unfortunately the people we had arranged to come had been working in the field all day and arrived back too late to come.

Not having an evening devotion we sat around in the guesthouse lounge drinking our Chai and hot chocolate. John took to the guitar and began strumming, playing some songs that I remember from school and when I attended church with my parents. I was reminded of so many memories and being sat round singing along to the acoustic sounds that John so professionally and wonderfully played, the atmosphere was so positive and had such a loving and united feel to it. Despite having no Hymn books at this point, we still managed to remember most of the words to each song and sang them pretty loudly and enthusiastically. The only real unfortunate thing about this particular activity was that I think Emily had all the songs stuck in her head as she tried to get some well deserved and needed shut eye, after a long and busy day of orientation.

I spent Tuesday morning printing out all the work I had done over my three month period so that I could sit down with Solomon and discuss and present him with all the information he needed to understand how the Transformation Kenya programme would work. The printer was very slow and there were continuous interruptions with numerous people wanting to also print from the same machine. I spent lunch time with just Matthew as John and Emily were off at Dreamland involved in workshops in the school and hospital.

Back at the office some time after lunch we were faced with once again a power shortage probably because of the rainfall we were experience at this time. Once the rain had stopped, I decided to head back to the guesthouse to be taught by Helen how to make an impressive selection of Chapattis that I could show off possibly with when I returned home. I helped with the nine chapattis that we were able to make from the big ball of dough that Helen worked so hard to prepare and then I added some oil to the dough and left it to set for about 20 minutes. After this I began to roll out the dough and create the chapattis which would be later deep fried. My first few attempts were pretty poor to say the least with the shape tending to be more square than round like they are usually found. Once I had gotten some practise, I became quite good at quickly rolling a nice round, even layer of dough and helped put these in the pan to be fried for what was less than a couple of minutes. We soon had a full meal prepared and I also made Chai under the instruction of Helen and we all feasted and had what was a successful and well prepared meal.

That evening we were visited by Francis where we had our first evening devotion session. It went successfully and John also assisted with the guitar whilst we sang one song. Once Francis had left for home in the pouring rain, John taught me a few chords on the guitar which I tried to learn and pick up for the rest of the evening.

Wednesday morning I ate breakfast alone with John and Emily out and about doing all kinds of activities, with Matthew with them showing them to their stations. This morning I had arranged to have the meeting with Solomon that would finalise my project and allow him to have a clear interpretation on what I had spent most of my time doing.

I called Solomon’s secretary to clarify my meeting and Solomon got back to me suggesting 11am as the time we were to have our meeting. Putting a few things together, I waited until 11am to be called to his office but like usual he was delayed, with another of his meetings lasting a lot longer than initially planned. I waited around and continued working on what I could until lunch time and then head back to the guesthouse to quickly grab some lunch and hurry back, as I could have been called for this meeting at any time. Unfortunately I spent most of the day waiting and never actually succeeded to have a successful discussion with Solomon at all. Before dinner I went to Spring’s café with Dennis and Mike for some Mandazi and Chai which was really nice and it was a chance to catch up with the guys who I hadn’t really seen or talked with for a while.

Back at the ranch I met with John and Emily who had both come back from a successful day working both in Lagulu School and out in the community with a mobile hospital. John proceeded to tell us about his day and how he used his musical talents to give across a spiritual and encouraging message to children, and then Emily explained how her day saw her working alongside doctors, meeting and treating patients with medical problems such as AIDS and TB.
After dinner we had our usual evening devotion and continued the rest of the evening playing the guitar. I had the opportunity to have a tinkle, so I practiced a few chords attempting to try and learn at least a little.

Thursday morning I was faced with breakfast alone again. This was becoming seemingly more common and I hope the reason wasn’t because I failed to have a proper shower for some of the mornings previous because of the power problems we were experiencing. They had gone early to start their duties and had quite a distance to travel to actually reach where they would be working. I spent most of the morning emailing people who could help with this program and also spent some time with Ann discussing the Education System as the details I had received were slightly incorrect. Sitting with Ann for about 20 minutes, we made a few alterations to the material I had strung together and arranged to meet again some other time to discuss it in more detail.

After lunch I came back to find the office being powered by the petrol generator. I spent the afternoon, working on some guidelines for my presentations and did a little more printing in the cyber area. We spent the evening in the lounge for devotion and all seemed to go our separate ways with another day ahead of us tomorrow.

Matthew set off to Kisumu early Friday morning so the table for breakfast was not full once again. I spent the morning just contacting some people via email regarding my project and took it quite easy with not a very lot to do. The rain soon began to beat down on the tin roof and continued all the way up to lunch time. I had to take a journey home in the runny slippery mud but fortunately this time I had been smart and worn my trainers instead of my flip flip/slippers which I had worn on previous very wet and muddy occasions.

Finishing lunch I took shelter under the slanting roof of the Simba and stood speaking to Dennis waiting until the rain calmed down before I embarked back on my journey to the office. As I waited I saw Solomon jump into his car ready to leave the compound. Quickly running over, I asked where he was going and if I could have a lift to the office. He was on his way to the office also anyway, so I got into the passengers side and we left for the office. During our short journey along the road we arranged to have the meeting that we were unable to have a couple of days previous. He told me that 2.30pm was a perfect time to come and see him so I should get my things together and meet him in his office.

At half past I made my way and sat with him and put forward some of my ideas for this project in brief. He seemed pretty happy with what I explained and excited to read the document I had put together in full and placed before him on his desk. The meeting lasted about 30 minutes and was very encouraging and left with both of us feeling positive about what would come from this over the next few years.

In the evening John, Emily and I sat in the guesthouse playing cards like amateurs. We didn’t really know the rules to the game we were playing so we improvised and dealt with any problems when we came to them. Matthew still hadn’t arrived back as he was picking up four new visitors who were travelling from Holland to stay here at the guesthouse on an internship for 11 weeks. 10pm arrived and we were all pretty tired so we head to bed to sleep and wake up with four new visitors to greet at breakfast.

Not long after we had hit the sack the new arrivals were heard dragging their suitcases and carrying their stuff along towards my room and then up into the guesthouse to be shown to their rooms. They all must have been so tired from a long and stressful journey, so they too quickly made their way to bed to wake up fresh and ready to greet the rest of their housemates and start on their new adventure.

See you soon x

Blog #23

2007-08-03T11:45:00.000+03:00

The time had come to embark on a mission that could change my life forever, or at least my nights sleep for the remaining 20 days of my stay in my room. It was time to get to the bottom of why these ants loved my company so much and free my mind of the paranoia I have that one day I will wake up from a poor attempt at a nights sleep, and find myself covered in creatures that I would quite preferably like to have as far away from me as possible. Over the past couple of days I have read back some of the blog’s I have posted and I have come to realise that I could be easily perceived as a bit of a moaner. I really do sound like I sometimes stress out a little too much about things and come across as a bit of a hypochondriac when it comes to sickness. To tell you the truth though, my surroundings are a lot different to what I'm used to back home and this is kind of causing me to respond to things in different ways. But really, as far as the moaning is concerned, I basically... pretty much... I just love it!

So I woke up Saturday morning with a banging headache and jumped in the shower to try and refresh myself somehow. The power went half way through washing, so I was certainly woken up more once the freezing cold water shot down quite rapidly onto my body. Today the guys were going to visiting Webuye Falls and since I had already seen these just days previously, plus the fact that I wasn’t feeling the best, I decided to give it a miss and stick around at the guesthouse and complete some other jobs in mind.

Once the guys had left I decided to embark on giving my room a good clean to try and figure out why these ants were hanging out with me or at least prevent any more from appearing. I began by stripping my bed as it was now time for some new sheets anyway and then I began by moving all the main furniture including, chairs, shelving and suitcase, outside my door. I put all the junk that I have had lying around along my stay onto my bed and moved it into a better position to enable me to get my sweep on and use the relatively new sweeping brush to the best of my ability. There wasn’t much to sweep really, just a little bit of dust and mud that had collected in areas and a few clumps of cotton balls that had congregated along the top of my wardrobe. I became quite hot relatively quickly and I seemed to be putting some hard work into getting this place spotless. The room wasn’t exactly a mess before I started really, never the less it could have done with a bit of a revamp as it had appeared almost the same for more than two months of my stay.

Very soon the room began to look very tidy and a lot bigger than before. It appeared quite bare but at the same time very appealing, infact I was hesitating whether to bring all the furniture back in as it looked so much better. Leaving the furniture still outside for a while I began to clean my bathroom. I filled my two buckets up with water and soap and grabbed the old and scraggy mop that I found outside by the washing area. Hooking all curtains out of the way and removing all utensils from the room, I scrubbed the floor creating extreme measures of soap and water. It soon became very slippery so I had to be careful of my ever move. I made sure I got into every possible spot that the mop could reach and soon the place was beginning to look shinier. Throwing my used water down the poor draining system by the shower, the room soon began to flood with water. After a while the soap suds disappeared and I left the place to dry whilst I had a light lunch and chilled in the guesthouse waiting for the guys to return.

By now my headache had gone. The two paracetamol had done their job well and I was feeling much better and almost prepared for the afternoon session at the office. Matthew, John and Emily arrived back at the guesthouse for around 2pm but didn’t stay long before heading to the office for their introduction session and to be prayed for. Not ready and planning on having a short sleep before I left for the rest of the day, I hung back and arranged my room before having a lie down for a couple of hours.

Waking up around 4.30pm I decided I would get ready and make my way to the office. I got up out of bed and went to my wardrobe to grab some clean clothes to wear for the evening. I grabbed a sweater and a T Shirt from the main wardrobe, some trousers from my top draw, then reached into the bottom draw to collect some clean underwear and some socks. Pulling the bottom drawer open a little further than usual, I noticed stuffed in the back was a plastic bag that I hadn’t seen in ages. This particular bad had been used a little at the beginning of my stay and help several lolly pops and sticky sweats that I had been munching myself and giving to the kids. Reaching into the bag to see what was left, that’s when I had my little surprise. I finally found out where these ants were congregating mainly in my room and I was so relieved to know why they were there. Grabbing the bag that was infested with these small, black, fast moving ants, I quickly threw it into my bin and took it outside. Surprisingly the ants had only spent their time gathering together in the bag of goodies and stayed away from my socks and underwear. I had been reaching in and using the socks and underwear for days and not even spotted the bag once, I was lucky and this could quite easily have resulted in a severe case of “Ants in my Pants”.

I got ready and jumped on my bike into town just to buy some fly spray to make sure there were no more little rascals near any of my items of clothing. After visiting several shops I finally found some fly spray that I knew had a nice smell to it but most importantly worked. On return I sprayed my room and specific areas with this caramel scented fly killing machine, then grabbed my Bible and made my way on foot to the office.

On the way I passed several people who were making their way back from the session. At this time there must have been a break so I continued on to the office where I found everyone just beginning to gather back together to resume their prayers. I found myself involved in a group activity and this was the first time in the three Prayer and Fasting weekends I had attended, that I had been involved in prayer that involved separating into small teams. I was based with Solomon and three other people, two men and one woman. Previously in the day, prayer items and thanksgiving items had been noted down on paper, so we discussed these and shared them out amongst ourselves to be later prayed for. I was only given a couple of prayer items but still made a valid contribution to our team’s prayers.

After an hour or so we were all reunited together again in the main hall for the last stretch of this Saturday’s session. I was sat with John as he played an amazing tune on the Piano which inspired me even more to try and learn when I get home. He then stood and played the guitar whilst we all sang and then later we heard testimonies and messages that were given. Just before we broke to end the session we all stood together to form a U shape and were presented with bread and Vimto as wine as communion. The session ended at around 9pm and just before everyone left Solomon introduced the two new visitors and called me up to the front of the hall. I stood whilst Solomon explained a little more to the congregation about the Gap Programme and encouraged people to invite and get to know the volunteers more. He explained about the programme I have set up out here and told them that today was my last Prayer and Fasting session and that I only had only a small number of days remaining. After he finished his talk he asked me if I would like to say a few words to the people who were sat listening and peering to the front of the hall. I was a little hesitant at first as I hadn’t prepared anything to say and was a little over whelmed with the nice words and message Solomon had just put across. I knew I should really say something and that now was as good of time as any, so I said a few words to show my appreciation and thanked them for my pleasant and enjoyable stay.

Leaving the offices quite promptly in the dark, I walked back with a few people from in and around the Mission, who expressed how they were going to miss me also. I made it back and sat around with Dennis and Matthew in the Simba as the guesthouse had been locked up, with the tired visitors in bed.

On Sunday I woke up for breakfast then sharply after met with Leonard where Emily and I went with him to the Christian Glory Centre church for the English service. This is the church Leonard regularly attends so he showed us around quickly and then we were shown to our seats in the left section at the side of the main preaching platform. We seemed to be the only people sat in this particular section with most of the congregation sat facing the Pastor as he preached. The service didn’t last too long and within an hour and a half we had finished and were leaving Leonard to continue and lead the Swahili service.

So Emily and I walked back to the guesthouse greeting the little children along the way. Back at the guesthouse we took advantage of the morning sun and sat out on the chairs on the grass talking about our lives back home. Emily told me a bit about how when she was younger she did some travelling visiting places such as Ghana and America, touring and also doing bits of work along the way.

Once we had left the small garden area where we were sat, where we would normally do and hang our washing, we were visited by Ann who came round to say hey and see how things went in the morning. She then invited us over to the house to talk and read with the children that were at her place after their morning services. Suggesting we may come over and visit later, she then left and soon after the guys returned from a very productive morning of teaching in Sunday school. John and Matthew had been to St James Church, attending the service but most importantly adding a contribution to the morning Sunday school activities. They had been using messages from the Bible and music to get the children involved and give them an interesting and educating experience.

After lunch the dining hall turned into what could have been the scene from a child’s birthday party. We were discussing games in which the children who were to attend the IcFEM holiday club in the next coming week could play, then we began to perform these games just to get those of us who weren’t so familiar with the games more up to speed. I learned four new games which had similar rules and objectives as some I already know. “King of the Jungle” required one of the players to be the Lion, another was a one cell organism, and then the rest of the players had to be those animals which came between both of the already suggested characters. Each player had a seat and an action representing their animal allocated to them and if they made a mistake when they were called to perform their action, along with someone else’s action for them to take their go, they became the one cell organism and had to switch seats. Everyone would eventually move along switching seats and becoming a new character. Remembering everyone’s action and character, including your own is essential, and it became a lot of fun and we had many laughs playing and acting stupid. The other games had similar rules and objectives and were equally as fun. We spent some time making a lot of noise and raising a few eyebrows from the staff working in the kitchen, but then retired after about half an hour of playing.

Shattered, probably from playing these games at lunch and having to dash round the tables to keep the pace of the game up, we all did our own thing with some of us crashing out in our rooms. Matthew had a couple of hour’s sleep in his room, whilst I lay in bed and caught up on a few moments of shut eye too. I wasn’t gone long, then rose from my bed for a bit of exercise and jumped on my bike taking a trip to town. I rode all through town along to where the market usually is based. I rode on past the market but soon turned round and headed back to the guesthouse taking an alternate route this time.

Back at the guesthouse I sat and watched whilst Matthew did some washing before dinner. After talking for a few minutes I started to feel a little less lively than usual and started to experience some pains in my stomach. They had been on and off all day but I never really thought anything of them until now. After a couple of minutes it began to make me feel uncomfortable and as a result, I wasn’t looking too forward to dinner and I wasn’t really in the mood to be very active.

After eating dinner on a slightly dickey stomach, I sat around in the guesthouse with the guys as we chatted and watched some television. I wasn’t much fun and really didn’t feel like being that sociable, so rather than sitting there and look slightly miserable, I headed to my room to sleep off what seems to be a bit of a recurring sickness. I really don’t know what causes these stomach upsets but as soon as I find out, ill surely let you know.

Tuanani x

Blog #22

2007-07-30T15:55:00.000+03:00

I just don’t understand it right, why call it Athletes foot when someone who doesn’t even make the effort to run for a bus can get it. I'm guessing that’s what I’ve got a little underneath one of my toes on my left foot. Maybe that’s what you get from walking and wearing trainers in such a hot and humid climate, I don’t know, but it’s irritating me and it feels so much better when I walk round rocking the red flip flops/slippers I was provided with in my room when I first came to Kenya.

So Monday morning we had initially planned to go visit the waterfalls in Webuye after unfortunately not being able to see them on the Saturday previous. We waited around in the office but about 10am were visited by Dennis who was to show us to the falls, as he was the only one who knew the way, who had now got piles of jobs to do with just one of them being filling in some forms for his University application. Knowing that the falls would still be there the next day, we decided to stay in the office and continued with whatever work we had to do. We left Dennis to crack on with his work whilst we did ours and in no time lunchtime had arrived as we were starving.

As we had made plans to leave for Webuye in the morning we had cancelled lunch to be made at the guesthouse. It was too late for us to request it again so we head off into town to Kim’s Dishes to fatten ourselves up on chips and sausage covered in salt and tomato sauce. Arriving and having to cram in a corner and order food, we found that there wasn’t the option to have any sausages so we settled for a Somoza instead. Finishing a large plate of chips and a meat Somoza in no time, we cleared up and paid for our meal which came to less that £1 each, that’s including a soda. I grabbed a Mandazi which was delicious and walked back to the office for 2pm.
Back at the office I began to work on some presentations I had to create using Power point and some of the information I had developed over my stay. Creating a template and using as much of my creative ability as possible I tried to plough through the work trying to finish it before dinner. Fortunately I managed to complete this, and then was visited by Tony who I hadn’t had a proper meeting with for ages. We were supposed to have a regular once a week meeting as he was my mentor, but as we had both been very busy of the past weeks, this hasn’t really been possible.

Back after dinner we sat and watched a DVD and lounged on the seats. We watched maybe three quarters of Mr Deeds until it crashed, so we decided we would do the same and left the lounge for bed.

We started off Tuesday in the office just checking emails before Webuye. We jumped in the two usual Matatu’s and arrived in Webuye for around 11am. We hired three Boda-Boda’s who were waiting at the side of the road and took a ride on to as close as they could take up before the landscape became too steep.

Getting dropped off by a school we walked up, along and down to the waterfalls getting followed by a group of school children curious to see where we were going. The children followed us all the way to the falls and stood with us whilst we took photos and rested. The sun was very strong and bright and fell on to the falls making it look even more glamorous. Taking many snaps from as many angles as we could reach we decided to head back for a long walk to get a Matatu home.

The walk back seemed very far. We reached the school we had got dropped off at and continued on past the Paper Pan factory that like always, gave out its horrible smell. We passed the housing that was provided to the workers and these buildings were giving letters to identify the housing instead of numbers like is more often used. Along the away to find a vehicle, we stopped off a café, grabbing some food before we head off back to Kimilili. Once having two very much needed sodas we got in to a Matatu where the driver and attendant recognised us from our previous visit to Webuye on Saturday.

On our return to no power it was a useless idea to go to the office so we head straight back to the guesthouse to do whatever we could there. Matthew did some washing of his clothes whilst I talked with Helen and got her to give me a lesson in preparing Chapatti and Chai, so that I could possibly make them when I get home, that’s if I still remember. After a quick lesson, we were fed with duck and then spent the rest of the evening doing a little ironing and watching the rest of our film.

With more work to do, I spent most of Wednesday morning continuing with the presentations I had to make. The one I was particularly working on today needed 50 odd slides creating and involved inputting text and several images on each page. I completed this and just before lunch decided I would start on creating some Postcards that hopefully could be printed and sold raising money for the mission. I began by just editing some images I had taken along my stay, but broke off for lunch time only completing a couple of cards.

After lunch I continued trying to make as many postcards as I could. I began by measuring existing postcards as I needed to get the canvas size correct as I didn’t want the images to be distorted if they were to be resized to fit on card. Towards 3pm Matthew left for Bungoma to pick up two new arrivals who were Gap Students for the programme. John and Emily were coming for two weeks and had taken a long flight and bus journey and it was now time for Matthew to meet them to bring them to stay in Kimilili. Towards the end of the day I had the pleasure for the second time this week of chatting with Tony and I was able to show him the work I had been working on for the past couple of months and got some very good feedback. At 6.30pm I went back to the guesthouse to hopefully meet the new arrivals and have myself a nice dinner.

They hadn’t quite arrived yet so I stood talking to Mark in the kitchen. They were soon here towards 7pm where the four of us sat down to dinner and got to know one another. The two of them are married and John works in a school whilst Emily is studying to be a Doctor at Oxford. During their stay their programmes will involve doing some teaching and working in a couple of hospitals in and around Kimilili. We sat talking about some of the things they will be doing over their stay and they asked me a couple of questions just to give them a brief idea about some of the things they will experience. I answered as best I could but explained that you never really know until you have experienced it for yourself, then after as they were obviously very tired, we left them to turn in for the night.

We woke up for breakfast Thursday morning to find the couple had gotten a good first night sleep. We head to their first morning devotion and then afterwards they began their orientation in a very similar way to how I did what was now months ago. It’s shocking and it’s really hitting home how time has passed, and it’s becoming seemingly more obvious how I have so little time left. With the arrival of new visitors I’m becoming less eager to come home and more confident and proud of being able to spend this part of my life in Kenya.

There was no power after a couple of hours of being at the office and I decided to go to the market with Dennis to see what was available. On the way I was chatting with Dennis about how the time both him and I have left here in Kimilili is getting shorter and shorter by the day. He leaves for University on August 13th and not many days later, I will be on a plane heading back home to resume life in England. We wandered round looking at lots of stalls and items of clothing laid out on the ground, and searched through piles of T shirts looking for at least one that was decent enough to consider buying. After some time of looking round I found a hat and a t shirt that both together came to 100 shillings. The T shirt is a little on the tight size and after washing the hat I found it was not very flattering, but never the less I didn’t spend much and they may come in handy sometime or other.

Just before lunch we arrived back at the guesthouse with still no power, so I decided to give my new items their clean and sit talking to Mark about how I could soon become a professor teaching Swahili. Lunch time came and I heard how the newest members to the Gap Programme had spent their morning and how they enjoy planting their share of trees at Dreamland.

The return of power didn’t look promising and with no battery on my laptop I was pretty restricted in what I could do. I decided to catch up with a couple of hours sleep before dinner so went to my room and tucked myself neatly underneath my covers. After waking up in plenty of time before dinner I left with Dennis for town for him to run a few errands on our bikes. We stood talking with Peter from Pioneer for a while discussing the condition of Dennis’ phone. With no power all day there was no progress made in fixed his phone so we came home leaving the phone still with Peter to be repaired another day.

Not having any power still, during and after dinner we used the gas lamp to light up the room. Eventually towards the end of the day it decided to return, where we were then visited by Solomon to see us and to also welcome the new visitors.

Back in my room just after 10pm I noticed as I walked in the door that I had a trail of ants forming a strategic line all the way along my wall. Slightly freaked out and worried that the little insects may have found their way into my bed, I took of my slipper and slapped the wall till all was left was a lot of black dots against the green paint work. The ants looked to have made their way onto my chair and again some of them found their way onto the clothes that were placed there. Somehow from moving my clothes, a few of the ants ended up in my bed, so I had to strip the sheets, shake and re lay them again. Consequently, being paranoid that I had not fully cleared my bed and room of ants, I had a poor nights sleep. I woke up feeling pretty tired and stressed that they might return again today.

Wearing my red Gap T shirt and carrying a packed lunch in my bag, Friday morning I headed to the office to wait to be taken to the official opening of the Kamukuywe Local Unit. We waited around and being one of the last to leave, we squashed in the back of a Landrover and made our way to Kamukuywe. We arrived and were shown to the visitors section where we found our seats. John and Emily were seated at a more central position at the front, whilst Matthew and I took different positions knowing we would be acting as camera men for the event. Matthew stood at the front aiming his video camera directly into the faces of the speakers who were stood at the front projecting to the audience. He occasionally focused the camera around the outside arena, probably capturing me yawning several times from the lack of sleep the night before.
A couple of hours of more of less solid Swahili we were presented with some entertainment for some local school children. They did a little acting and some singing so I stayed seated and watched this, but then made my way to the Mission Landrover to have some lunch. I sat and ate the packed lunch Mark had made for us in the morning and spend a little time away from the main speaking and discussion, wandering around taking snaps and talking with some of the other Mission staff.

Towards late afternoon after the launching had been in progress for many hours, Emily, John and I made friends with the some of the small children, whilst Matthew did some serious recording of Solomon, with the video camera. John and Emily got the children singing and doing the actions to “Heads, shoulders, knees and toes” which was great. The children loved it but unfortunately there was an old man who was drunk and taking it too serious. He tried getting us to buy them soda’s, getting them seated and telling them to expect some from us, however luckily they didn’t take much notice of him.

After the official launching and the cutting of the ribbon to open this particular Unit, the four of us decided to head back using public transport as John and Emily were tired and wanted some time to relax and rest before Prayer and Fasting which was to begin this evening. John and Emily got their first experience of riding a Boda-Boda and we shot home in a Matatu arriving for just after 6pm. Matthew and I went to the office to collect our laptops whilst John and Emily went back to the guesthouse for the evening. At the office we found there was no internet as the server was not back on with the late return of the power, so we packed up and headed back to the guesthouse.

We sat down and were all exhausted. I'm sure John and Emily must have been doubly tired with having their first long day full of Swahili and having still not fully recovered from their long trip here, and I was also beginning to feel a little sleepy. I had wanted to nod off all day, so tonight I decided to give the Prayer and Fasting session a miss as I wouldn’t have been on form, so the four of us stayed back and retired for bed early to try and regain our strength for a weekend of more activities.

There were still a few ants crawling around in my room and I now think they begin to come out after dark. I sprayed the room and specific areas with repellent and head to bed with the early stages of a headache coming on. I'm planning on giving my room a complete turnover and I am determine to get rid of the remaining insects. The thing that bugs me is that my room isn’t even dirty. I could understand it if I was messy, but I'm continuously cleaning it and trying to keep it as tidy as possible. I’ll see what happens after the weekend and hopefully the worrying with stop when the little creatures find somewhere else to hang out and have their parade.

Take Care x

Blog #21

2007-07-30T14:49:00.000+03:00

Saturday and Sunday were pretty jam packed and it really seemed as if we’d had an extra long weekend with Thursday and Friday being a lot more laid back than usual. The weekend consisted really of seeing some of the close sights in Kenya and visiting people at a more leisurely pace.

I began Saturday with breakfast and then whilst waiting around after, I began on some more washing with just a few items to clean since my last wash. We were heading to Webuye to have a quick look around, maybe grab something to eat and a dip in a swimming pool if we were lucky. We also had the idea in mind to visit the waterfalls that Webuye had to offer as we had heard lots of stories of how beautiful they are and Matthew also thought it would be a nice place that the other Gap students could visit. Finishing my washing I waited around for Matthew and Dennis to be ready to leave but whilst waiting other tasks became more important so we had to postpone our journey for an hour or so.

After Matthew purchased some credit for Solomon and sent him the credit to his phone in Nairobi, we set off at around 11.30 for about an hour journey in a Matatu to Webuye. We were dropped off in town by Patice in the Mission Landrover. We changed Matatu’s at Kamukuywe and arrived in Webuye around 1pm. The weather could change at anytime so we decided we would head straight to the Villa Park Hotel where there was a restaurant and the swimming pool we may have our little paddle in.

Arriving at Villa Park Hotel we found ourselves a nice spot by the pool. The pool was crystal blue and it was hardly believable that we were still in Kenya. It really seemed like something you would find in Spain or somewhere warm that tourists would often visit, not somewhere that has all the associations with poverty. We sat occasionally hopping out from underneath our shaded umbrella to catch a little sun and after about an hour of relaxing decided to order some food. Matthew and I both got a sandwich and chips. Matthew had beef whilst I had chicken and Dennis had something a little more traditional and tucked in to chapatti, Kuku along with a few small portions of veg.

After a couple of hours of relaxing and talking, we decided to pay for our food and head back towards the junction to catch a Matatu home. By now it was approaching 4pm and we weren’t too confident about the idea of searching for the falls, especially with the sky not looking too appealing, so we jumped in the Matatu where Matthew and I were seated in the front with full vision out of the windshield. Switching Matatu’s again in Kamukuywe I found myself crammed in the back towards the front with my feet just above the engine. My feet were boiling and at one point I remember thinking I wouldn’t be surprised is the soles of my sneakers melted a little.

Back at the guesthouse we sat relaxing and waiting for our dinner. We had it slightly early this evening to help Rose out as she was standing in for Helen who was sick with Malaria and then after spent the rest of the evening in the lounge watching Jaws.

We were up early for breakfast Sunday and set off to meet Ken at 8.15am as we were going with him to visit his father’s house. We set off and walked to the junction by the D.O’s office where we met him and his daughter Tracy with their bibles in hand. We travelled to Kiminini a place in Kitale where Kens father lives and this particular morning we were going to attend an English service in that town. During the service we were introduced as visitors where Matthew and I spoke introducing ourselves. It seemed to be over in no time and then we left, walking back to the road meeting very many people along the way who were heading to the church for the Swahili service. After spending quite some time greeting and talking with passers by, we finally managed to meet with Ken’s father Francis where he took us to have a look around his book shop.

Francis ran a small book shop on the front of one of the streets that branches out from the main road. He showed us some of his stock and also showed us a project that a member of staff was working on whilst she was waiting for customers to come in and make a purchase. She was doing some embroidery designing a pattern on to a pink piece of cloth which was going to be used as a cushion. We spent a little time here until finally leaving Francis to attend his service and a meeting where he would later find and talk with us again at his home.

We set off on a long walk to the car that we were going to use to get to the house. We walked along a long street and stopped off at a shop for Ken to grab a container for some petrol and we also had the chance to grab a soda whilst we waited. Tracy’s little legs were getting tired also, so Tracy, Matthew and I sat on a bench looking out onto the road drinking out of our glass bottles. We were then reunited with Ken as he returned on a Boda-Boda with some petrol and then we set off for another long walk to the car with the sun beaming down on our necks.

We arrived at the Pathfinder Academy where the car was based and this place was the compound for another volunteer organisation in Kenya. It occupied several well constructed houses which were kitted out perfectly with nice comfortable looking beds and animal designs such as Zebras on the walls. We took a look around as we waited for the car. Matthew asked questions with the guy who was in charge about how they advertised and acquired volunteers and got some insight into how the whole programme was run. After some time, once the car was filled with juice, we all jumped into the car and set off towards the gates to embark on our journey.

The car was a little jumpy at first, that is until it cut out on us completely. We had just made it out of the gates where it finally died and wanted to move no more. After several restarts and a little bit of worrying from Matthew and I because the car was rolling backwards and there was no door handles from the inside, we realised that we were going no where in this vehicle so the best thing to do was to push it back into the compound and leave it there for some one to come another time and repair it. We pushed as Ken steered the car back through the painted gates and were fortunately then offered a lift by the guy in charge at the Academy. We jumped into his newer more sophisticated vehicle where he took us along the typical uneven roads dropping us just before Ken’s father’s house.

We weren’t at the house long before food was served. Rice, Kuku and Chapatti were served on a small knee high table and we all sat on the different lilac covered sofas that filled the room. Chickens roamed the house whilst we ate and one even left us a little present in the middle of the floor which was later mopped up and cleaned. I once again got to have a gizzard as it was tradition for the guests to have this part of the bird. It would be rude not to accept it so I chewed through the tough meat along with the other foods on offer.

After lunch Ken and his brother took us on a tour of the farm as their father was not back from his meeting yet. The farm was pretty large and had so many views that I just had to capture with my camera. We walked down towards the river which was based at the lower end of the farm as the sun began to gradually get lower as it reached around 4pm. Along our way to the river we passed a house that was based on the land for one of the workers and his family to live in. I think there were 8 people living in the house and it wasn’t much bigger than 4 x 6 meters. Walking on past the house we came to a section where Ken’s brother had been previously baking bricks. He’d had to postpone this project for a while due to rains in past days but he had made some good progress with lots of bricks stacked and covered by a plastic sheet.

After walking a slightly longer way to the river, avoiding a the more boggier areas as Matthew and I were still wearing our good footwear from church, we came in contact with an elderly man who was in the process of fishing. He had caught a few fish and still planned to spend more of the afternoon with his home made rod and worm for bait. Once we had seen the river that separated two Provinces, Western and Rift Valley, we headed back to the house where hopefully we would find Francis so we could spend some time with him like we had originally planned.

We made it back passing some children collecting water from the well. Francis was back already tucking in to his late lunch so we sat down across and around him discussing some of the projects he runs along side having the book shop business. This guy is intelligent and had some great ideas and business plans. He used to work for the mission but not he has just recently began a scheme which see him employed to inform and teach people how to manage both their finances and time. He agreed that there was a big problem with time management here in Kenya and felt that he had the ability to offer this service to the public and improve their lives just by teaching them these better skills. We had a few laughs and discussing about how he could do with some more staff to make his project more sustainable but unfortunately had to leave as it was getting late and Francis also had to attend another evening meeting.

We left around 5.30pm and walked with Francis to his meeting where we would wait for Ken and Tracy to catch up with us. We were introduced to the five members that were already there at the meeting and once reunited with Ken and Tracy, walked up a more even road than the one we came on, to the town. Around half way on our journey we were passed by three Boda-Boda’s who we tagged down and asked for a lift. We each jumped on the back of a bike, with Tracy sat on Ken’s knee, and made it back to the town for the Matatu in just less than 10 minutes.

At the junction just on from the bus stage, we paid the Boda-Boda’s. One of the Boda-Boda left without returning Ken some change and cycled off to blend in with the rest of the Boda-Boda pack that wait on the junction corner. Ken had to return some glass bottles we had used during dinner to a shop just along the road, so he left us with Tracy whilst he nipped on. Matthew and I walked on to just before the bus stage holding Tracy’s hand as we were close to the road. We waited for a little time until Ken came and we jumped on to a bus. This bus was bigger than a Matatu and had almost 50 seats. There was a television playing a Nigerian film at the front of the bus as the bus drove back and got us home for around 7pm.

We were late and Mark was waiting around as he had prepared us dinner. After lunch I was pretty much stuffed, but as time had passed I was hungry again and was satisfied with the chapatti and beans that we were given.

After apologising to Mark numerous times as it was not dark and he would be walking home, we sat in the lounge and watched some TV and relaxed. I got a phone call from the folks who had just got back from holiday and it was nice to hear they had got home safely. I heard about some of the funny stories that had happened over the past few weeks both at home in England and in Spain, and then later after speaking to them went to sleep to wind down from the long busy weekend.

Blog #20

2007-07-23T10:43:00.000+03:00

I think I scared my parents this week when I sent them a text message randomly thanking them for taking me on so many holidays as a child. As I was taking a trip out to Eldoret with my passport to get my Visa extended, I begun to see similarities between the towns I was passing and the places I had seen in the past as a kid. I realised I had never really thanked them for a lot of the experiences they have given me and it is becoming seemingly more obvious how grateful I should be for the things I have got and have seen. I'm only twenty ones years old but I'm pretty sure from what I am seeing here, that most people aren’t even going to leave their town nevermind see what I have already seen in the whole of their life time.

Waking up to no power is great, NOT, but never the less we still managed to have a nice breakfast and discuss that if the power didn’t return in the next couple of hours that we would spend the day hammering out the 300 and odd wrist bands we needed to use as gifts and souvenirs for our programme. Luckily just after 9am it did return, so I head off to the office to begin my productive week of finishing off the website and getting as far in front as I could, knowing that time was ticking away and I was now into my last months stay. I spent most of the morning working, having a little break for lunch, then returned in the afternoon to continue with the working and researching on the Internet. Making it home for dinner we ate and then decided to spend the evening in the guesthouse lounge watching the remaining minutes of the film we had begun watching at the end of the weekend.

Tuesday I started my day with morning devotion. After this I returned to my office working on my usual trying to decide on images to use and manipulating them to try and improve the quality. I needed some specific images for the website and I knew where I could find some nice ones that would fit quite suitably. With this I grabbed my camera and head outside to take some photos of the IcFEM compound, capturing some nice bright photos. I even took a few snaps of some of the Mission staff, mainly the ones that were in and around the Cyber. Rhoda, Jose, Robert and Tony were just some of the staff that struck a pose but unfortunately I wasn’t very successful in capturing a very clear photo, even after multiple attempts. I continued working up until lunch then came back for a nice meal at the guesthouse.

After lunch I arrived back at the office and figured it was about time my bike was fixed as about a week ago the front left brake had either fallen off or was stolen. I had been coping until now but I thought maybe soon I would pull the front break a little too hard and the whole thing would snap because of the fact of a missing a pad. I told Matthew so soon after lunch he head off into town to get it fixed whilst I stayed in the office and continued with my work. Towards the end of the afternoon it began to rain really heavily. The ground soon became a muddy pit and unfortunately I was wearing flip flops and walking across the compound became an even bigger mission that usual. It soon became time to go home for dinner and both Matthew and I knew that riding in this condition was risky and we would have to go slow to avoid slipping. We set off home riding at snail pace getting drenched in water but managing to avoid having our backs sprayed with red mud or having to put our feet down.

We arrived home with no power as the storms had some how again stopped the electricity. We had our favourite meal and spent most of the evening sat in the guesthouse lounge using the gas lamp for light. Towards the end of the evening the power returned so we switched on the TV and watched an episode of LOST and the news before bed.

Wednesday mostly involved working in the office. I made some good progress creating some neat pages and began to use some software to create some Gift Aid forms. We spend the evening in the lounge cutting and platting cotton whilst watching the Dads Army movie on DVD.

Thursday morning I woke up and had breakfast. Instead of heading straight to the office I decided I would wash some of my T Shirts as they were beginning to pile up in my room and also my trainers needed a good clean too. I gave these a mighty good scrub leaving them considerably clean given the amount of mud that had managed to soak its way deep into the material. I left the clothes to dry on the line then grabbed my bike and set off to the office.

Just as I set off I noticed Matthew coming back through the gate. He had come home to get on with as many wrist bands as he could so I left him to do his thing in the guesthouse lounge and made my way to the office. At the office I continued with the Gift Aid forms and worked on some other materials along side checking my emails and researching on the Internet. During my stay in the office I was visited by several members of the Mission with one of them leaving me a large envelope for Matthew. I finished up with the work then came back to the guesthouse around half an hour before dinner, bringing the parcel back for Matthew to take a look at.

I found Matthew working real hard with a big pile of completed wrist bands sitting at the side of him on the chairs. He had a movie playing on the TV that was nearly at the end, and he was concentrating hard strategically platting. It was soon lunch time and Matthew had to break off from the good work. We ate and then decided to head off into town to buy a great big bunch of finger bananas just to see us through the afternoon.

We searched all the way to town for stalls selling finger bananas but none of them seemed to have any available. Finally after passing at least 4 stalls we found a lady selling some so we purchased three bunches, with each bunch holding about 16 fingers. A bunch cost us 10 Shillings each so we handed the money over to the lady and walked off where Matthew began to eat his share instantly. As the bananas were so small Matthew ate most of his in a matter of minutes, throwing the skins to the side of the road as we walked back to the guesthouse. Throwing the skins was allowed but Matthew admitted that he did feel slightly guilty at first as it is something we don’t tend to do at home.

Back at the guesthouse, after leaving a trail of banana skins that I'm sure Mr Locke from LOST would have had a field day following, I begun to iron some clothes whilst Matthew continued platting. An Old school episode of Superman was on the TV so I cracked on with my ironing, in between eating my share of the bananas. Towards the middle of the afternoon I decided to go back to the office to get on with some more things and maybe post a blog online. I worked for a while and was then visited by Mike as he was leaving the Cyber. It was around 5pm and almost time for me to leave anyways, so I left with Mike and Anthony and rode into town as they walked along side. Mike did a couple of things in town and then we made our way back in time for dinner. Leaving them I met with Matthew and ate then spent the rest of the evening watching the box and having a slightly early night preparing for an early morning as we were setting off to Eldoret.

Friday my alarm went off waking me at 5.30am. I grabbed a shower, got ready and set off to meet Matthew and leave the compound for 6.15am. We were to get the Eldoret Express Bus which leaves at 7am, so we made our way to the bus stage with my passport amongst other things in my backpack.

We got on the Bus that was considerably empty but I was assured it would get a lot more crowded as we stopped off at the destinations along the way. We paid our 200 Shillings each, which we were later told was a little steep and not the usual price, and sat down towards the back end of the bus waiting for it to set off. Waiting and watching the early morning people hover around outside, we saw a couple more people occupy the bus. A young boy dressed in a blue and yellow school uniform came and sat behind us on the bus. The bus had two rows, looking from the back, the right row had three seats and the left, which we were seated on, had two. Matthew was sat near the window leaning and the young boy must have decided he wanted to some fresh air. He slid the window open jabbing the tough plastic into Matthew leaning shoulder which didn’t leave Matthew best pleased at all.

We set off on time and the bus did begin to get full. I was surrounded by people and families travelling to Eldoret and the stops along the way. The bus was noisy and the ride very bumpy. I felt like I was torn between a day out in Alton Tower and a bouncing car scene in a rap video. We were bouncing all over the place hitting bumps and occasionally leaning into each other as we turned corners. It was fun but at the same time a little uncomfortable, as you had to be constantly aware of your knees, as every time you hit a bump, if you weren’t careful you would have them trying to pierce their way through the seat in front of you.

We made it there in once piece and after stopping off at a small restaurant to relieve ourselves we made our way promptly for Matthews 9.30 appointment at the Salon in Eldoret. I left Matthew to visit the salon whilst I nipped next door to have some passport photos taken which I need to be able to extend my Visa. I had a photo taken in the upstairs and then was told to return in an hours time where they would then have developed. I met Matthew as I was leaving the shop and his hairdresser hadn’t arrived yet. We decided to grab some breakfast as we had left without any, so we went to a close by café for two Mandazi and a cup of Chai.

Matthew then spent fourty five minutes with the lady hairdresser that was specialised in cutting Mazungu hair. He had a couple of trainee hair dressers stood around watching how the magic was done. The hairdresser did a good job of the cut and seemed to know what she was doing. She only struggled to put the shaving lengths on the clippers a couple of times which only worried Matthew a bit, but overall she did a good job and he left looking much younger and tidier.

We grabbed the developed photos, which were pretty good to say they were taken with a camera and I am not the most photogenic person in the world, and head straight to the Immigration office to extend my Visa. The lady begin the counter filled me out some forms and then sent me upstairs to have my finger prints taken as I was to be registered as an “Alien”. Glad I wasn’t going to actually become an Alien, I head upstairs to have my prints taken and passport stamped. I rolled my fingers in black ink and printed them several times onto a card document. This was all over in about five minutes so we took the stairs back down and left towards the front doors.

Just as we were leaving I turned to Matthew and asked, “Where do we pay?”. We had not yet been asked to pay and it was pretty obvious that we were free to almost leave with an extended Visa in hand. We turned back and head to the lady at the first desk we came to and asked where we pay. She told us we should pay upstairs but the two guys up there didn’t even ask us for any money. We visited the two guys again and told them we hadn’t paid. They were surprised that we were so honest, but nether the less still took our money for the service. We finally left the place knowing we had done a good deed and continued to look around Eldoret.

As we walked through the markets and streets of Eldoret, I noticed lots more similarities between here and the places I had visited in previous years. The place had a feel to it that reminded me of so many things and it was nice to be able to be once again filled with the memories from the holidays in my life.

We walked down one particular street where there were shops, stalls and people with sheets of material laid out on the ground presenting T shirts, hats and other items for sale. All of a sudden as we got about a third of the way down the road, several men quickly picked up the sheets of material that were on the ground, bundling them up in their arms and running away as fast as they could to our particular direction. As soon as I saw them coming I was expecting to be ploughed down, even if I moved to get out of the way. Somehow the guys would still manage to knock me down like the last remaining skittle and it wouldn’t be the nicest feeling in the world with so many people stood around watching. Luckily some other poor soul managed to get in the way first and one of the men running collided with her and saw himself hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. The lady was ok, but the rest of the running men took another route and made it away behind some shops. To this day I still don’t know why they were running, even after a lady shop keeper tried telling me, I never fully understand their rush. Maybe they were stealing someone’s things or maybe the Police were close by and they were selling stolen goods. All I know is they wanted to get away quickly and they weren’t taking anyone’s feelings into consideration as they made their escape.

We soon left Eldoret, getting on a bus to Kitale. This journey was even bumpier than my first bus ride of the day as we hit many pot holes throughout the drive. We both tried sleeping but it wasn’t really possible as we were getting thrown around all over the place, only being held in because of our seat belts. We arrived at Kitale and found ourselves a nice restaurant to eat and at the same time sit outside to enjoy the sun. We sat outside for a while until we were harassed by ants and insects, then made our way inside as the weather was beginning to take a turn for the worse anyways. Inside we sat at our table and waited for our ordered food. Eventually it came after a considerable wait, where the beef Pizza I ordered turned out to be vegetable and Matthews Ughali and beef seemed to consist of 90% bone. We ate up adding sauces to give it extra taste then walked back into the main town to the bus stage.

In the Matatu I got to ride shotgun, sat in the front cab next to a lady and the driver. The journey lasted about an hour and it found us caught in a thunderstorm with heavy rain. I had a short talk with the lady named Agnes who worked at Delta Cresent in Mount Elgon, whilst being seated in a much more comfortable place than usual in the Matatu.

Back at home we had our dinner and sat resting from the early morning and the long day. We were both pretty tired and there wasn’t much to do. The television wasn’t showing anything interesting so we decided to turn in for the night and get ready for what the weekend had to offer.

God Bless x

Blog #19

2007-07-19T17:07:00.000+03:00

If you read my last blog you will probably be able to predict possibly how this weekend’s instalment will unfold. For the last couple of days I haven’t been at my best and slowly but surely I am now recovering. It’s nothing serious and nothing I can’t handle, but it’s definitely something you don’t wish upon yourself and certainly something you want to avoid catching again. I'm not sure how it happened and I guess there could be a number of causes, but all I am just assuming is that I have had an intake of some dodgy water somewhere along the way.

I woke up Saturday feeling quite a lot better and I definitely had some of my appetite back. Hungry from the lack of eating over the previous days I coated my stomach with cornflakes and Mandazi with jam. Matthew set off to Kitale to do a few jobs and I had planned to spend the day hanging with Dennis and the lads, along with other things of my own, that’s if they would let me of course. I spent some of the morning trying to refresh myself, showering and cleaning myself up. I was soon called on by Dennis and Mike to see what I was up to. I met with them outside the Simba and today the sun was especially hot. Walking around I was glad to be better. Mike left us to go home for some food but he was soon replaced by Edgar, his brother. We then head into town for a mid Saturday morning stroll.

Just as the three of us got into town I had an elderly lady come up to me speaking Swahili holding out her hand. I immediately thought she was requesting money from me so I walked on by ignoring her as I had been advised to. She came closer and she moved in to shake my hand. I felt guilty at first for assuming she only wanted money but as soon as I let go she began begging. I told her I didn’t have anything and I seriously didn’t have a penny on me. My hands were in my pockets to avoid her trying to go in them incase she tried. My keys were in my hand and I can only assume she heard them. I removed them from my pocket to prove they were keys and I had nothing but just had to continue walking at a much faster pace to get the message through and lose her.

Not even a minute later just after I got to the other side of the road, a man wearing a red base ball cap said something to me in Bukusu, a tribal language. He had his hand out to shake with me, so I shook his hand out of politeness. Once again I was then asked for money as he said “Give me twenty shillings”, slackening his grip but not fully letting go of my hand. I again told him I had no money and began to walk off. He was much younger than the lady and he began to follow, continuing to ask for money. I said “Pole sana”, which means “very sorry” but he wasn’t satisfied and began shouting. We continued walking as he followed for a short distance. I began to get mad, I didn’t particularly enjoy being harassed and neither did Dennis. To reinforce the fact that the man wasn’t getting anything from a “white man”, his words not mine, Dennis turned around and told him to leave us. He was soon gone and left somewhere in his dream world. I'm pretty sure he was a drunk and it wasn’t even noon.

After town we left Edgar by his house and Dennis and I returned back to the compound. It was soon time for my lunch so I left Dennis to do his own thing for a while whilst I went to eat. I began doing my washing once I had done eating. I needed to get this done as I had numerous boxer shorts and socks that needed some attention and the sun was warm and it seemed like the best opportunity. I began scrubbing and hanging the clothing on the line and was soon met by Mike who had returned after his lunch.

Leaving the clothes to dry on the line we went to the Cyber where we met Hilary, one of the guys along the way. At the cyber there was no power. On our journey the electricity must have cut out, so there were no computers working and with no key for the server room there would be no Internet when the power did return. It had begun raining heavily but luckily we were under shelter sat on chairs on the outside of the Cyber centre. Two white faces appeared through the gates of the office compound and these were two girls who were in Kenya with another charity, Rescue Steps. They were very disappointed, not just because there was no power but because they were absolutely drenched in rain from the heavy rainfall along their walk and Boda-Boda ride to the Cyber. They sat with us for a while chatting and they told me they were from “Up North” with a similar accent and way of speaking to me. Their names were Ellie and Ally, and Ellie was a nursery nurse with the ability to come out here 6 weeks. For Ellie it wasn’t her first time to this part of Kenya, she had been before and had seen Matthew and Mike when she was here two years previous. After spending some time finding out things about each other, they left to head back home to their accommodation which was how they described “not as luxurious as ours”.

Soon shortly we went back towards the house. Along the way we decided to go to the farm where the rest of the tomato planting could continue. For the past few days Dennis along with the Fundi’s had been filling the selected areas of the farm with the tomato plants. He popped home to change his footwear whilst the other lads and I made our way over to the farm. Meeting the Fundi’s there they began their hard work, evenly distributing the plants. I stood watching with Hilary discussing the Secondary school system over here in Kenya. I'm not being funny but if you think High schools in England are tough, there is no chance you would survive the standards and dedication they require here. Hilary and Mike told me how Secondary schools here are mostly boarding schools and how intense their working day is. They are up at 5am to what seems like almost continuous studying until around 4pm. They may then be allowed a couple of hours for game time and dinner, but then straight back to class for 6.30pm until 10pm. They are so disciplined and any slight slip up or lateness can result in being punished whether it be kaned or suspended for two weeks. They work so hard and they know so many languages. Hilary said to me, “Can you speak French?” I said “I was taught it in school but I can’t really remember much more than Bonjoir and Merci”, I felt pretty stupid. These guys are so smart and they work so hard and learn everything and it frustrates me that good people like these don’t get the lucky breaks that they deserve.

They asked me to describe a little about the school system in England and asked what happens to uncooperative students. I felt ashamed to say that students who don’t cooperate in class are rewarded by being taken on trips and activities just to keep them from disrupting. These guys are top guys and I couldn’t ask for better friends to have made while I have been here. I'm proud to have met them and I hope they don’t mind my company either. Aside from the work of setting up this new scheme which will hopefully help and give other good kids like these guys a better chance of a future, its days like today that really give me the feel and appreciate the fact that I’ve had the privilege and chance to come and live out and experience Africa.

Stood around talking to the lads saw me getting attacked by flies and I was getting pretty sick of being harassed today. After getting a hat and spraying on some repellent I returned back for the last hour’s worth of farming. My trousers and shoes were the muddiest they have ever been, even worse than when we did the mudding of the house. My underwear hanging on the line wouldn’t have dried either as the rain from the afternoon had mashed everything up.

Towards 6.30pm we headed back as it was reaching dinner serving time at the guesthouse. With no sign of Matthew I gave him a call to see how far he was. He was on his way back so I ate alone and got Helen to save him some chapatti and beans. The rest of the evening was spent in the Simba with Matthew.

Sometime during the night I woke up to the worst stomach grumbling sounds ever. It was more uncomfortable at first and made me start to question if I was going to be ill again. Maybe this worrying kept me up I don’t know, I tried sleeping but it just wasn’t happening and I kept drifting off but then waking up to a sickly feeling. It soon got 5am and I knew I was up in two hours anyway. As my stomach was making sounds like 40 lions having a roaring contest, I decided I would get up as I felt wide awake as it was.

So After breakfast I stayed in my room for a while hoping that the food I had just eaten wouldn’t disagree with me. I was fine and felt to be making a quick recovery, so I decided I would go see what Matthew was doing. I met him at the gates of the compound as he was just making his way back from the office, it would soon be time for lunch anyways so I just hung around with him and Dennis at the Simba until then.

After lunch we decided to take that trip back to the office. I hadn’t been in for a while with being sick so I wanted to check some emails and post some blog’s work out some other stuff online. We spend a little time at the office and then returned back to the guesthouse as Matthew was tired and wanted to sleep. Back at the guesthouse Matthew went to his room. It was still warm and I fancied a walk, so I went to find Dennis at the family house. He wasn’t there but I spoke to two of the girls from the house, Joy and Bithian, and they asked if they could join me for the walk. So the three of us took a walk down to the farm, me wearing my sandals as my trainers were still caked in mud, to see how the tomatoes were doing from their previous days planting. We also had a look at the house that Roel and Marianne are having built. It has come along more and more every day. Our walk didn’t last a so long but it was nice to walk round and be out in the fresh air Africa had to offer, rather than cooped up alone in my room.

Leaving the girls to go back into the house, I met with Dennis who was outside the Simba. We went into the guesthouse lounge and put the TV on for a while to see what was showing on a Sunday afternoon in Kenya. We watched an old episode of Wife Swap, the only really decent thing that was showing in English, and it was quite entertaining to see the way each family was reacting to their new homes. We were soon joined by Matthew who had just woken from a nice nap and come to see what we were up to.

After dinner we sat and cut some threads of cotton whilst watching some films. We watched the end of Oceans Twelve, and then as it was still early we started to watch another until the power cut out on us. It had been a long past week and with no power it was getting pretty difficult to see. I was pretty much fully recovered now but I knew that a good night sleep wouldn’t do me any harm, so I went to bed early using my torch to straighten out my bed cover and unfold my mosquito net.

Thanks for the concern over the past couple of days guys, it’s been nice to know you are looking out for me. I've been blessed with many friends here in Africa and it’s proven that I have a lot of good ones back home too.

Thank you and God Bless x

Blog #18

2007-07-15T15:09:00.000+03:00

Right now its 5.27am on Sunday July 15th and I have nothing better to do than sit up writing this weeks blog. I’m sick and it’s certainly something I don’t really want to make a habit of for the remaining however many weeks left of my stay. Seen as though I'm up and I'm finding it hard to sleep, I thought I might as well do something productive and write up Monday to Friday’s blog. Its gets rather dry towards the end of the week as that’s when the sickness began to kick in and the eagerness to stray too far from my bedroom began to decrease.

Still shattered from the weekend Monday morning found me dozing off again straight after breakfast. I lay down for two minutes and I'm off. It’s great. I proper love sleep, I could sleep all day, but I wasn’t asleep for long and then met Matthew at the guesthouse to continue with my work. There was just Matthew and I for lunch today, the other guests were off visiting schools and having meetings associated with the Harambee foundation they run. We spent the afternoon back at the office and then came back to the guesthouse when the day was up.

Back at the guesthouse before dinner, we decided to watch a movie on the newly installed DVD Player and Television. It really does sound like all we do is watch movies, but if you were here you would surely understand that there is a limit to what you can do mostly due to security reasons. Watching Oceans Twelve we experimented with the functions on the television. We explored the whole range of two sound options and managed to almost master the remote control. We watched most of this film until dinner and aimed to finish watching when we returned.

After dinner we discontinued the film and instead sat with the two lads from Holland and played cards. We towards the end of the evening introduced to a new visitor who would be stopping at the guesthouse for a couple of nights.

Tuesday morning at breakfast I was made aware that today we would be going back to the house we had helped build a couple of weeks back, as today it was going to be officially handed over by IcFEM. Dressed in my red Gap T Shirt around 12pm we set off to Kamukuywe using public transport. On arrival I firstly spotted the children who had been helping us with the mudding and like always they were smiling and ready to great us. There were many people all sat gathered together on benches under what was a home made marquee consisting of modified trees and what looked like an almost work out bed sheet. We sat underneath here for an hour or so whilst some of the Mission staff gave some speeches, said a few prayers and officially handed over the house.

The house looked a lot better than the way we left it. It had been given another two layers of mud for stability and to cover the cracks that appeared after it had dried, and it had also had the ground inside coated with cow dung that had now dried and acted as strong and hygienic flooring. The cow dung when solid is not only a cheap method of flooring but it also prevents dust and avoids the risk of small mites which are called Jiggers, in your feet. After the short ceremony the Mission staff and a few other associates were shown into the house where we were seated for a meal. We were presented with mashed banana, soup, rice and kuku. It was brilliant, however I did feel slightly guilty as the flooring didn’t seem to have fully dried yet and the chairs we were sat on seemed to be digging in, just a touch into the floor.

Coming back from Kamukuywe we were caught up in the rain but made it home to get dried off in time for dinner. Having eaten at what was only like two hours previous didn’t stop me from looking forward to another well prepared meal. After guzzling down god knows how many chapattis the rest of the evening was pretty relaxed. We sat around in the lounge whilst everyone did their own thing, then I retired for an early night on a full stomach.

Wednesday morning I was presented with a letter that had been delivered to the Mission for me. Id been told weeks previous that I should expect some mail and today it had finally arrived. I opened the Airmail I had received and inside were three pieces of blue paper all with cheerful and constructive messages written from the people in my Mom and Dads Home Group. The letters were nice and I really appreciated the fact that these people, who I don’t really know and I think most only really know me through my parents, would write me kind things, so I just want to use this part to say Thank you to those people if they are reading this.

During the morning, once the Internet returned, I read an email from one of my friends Jack back home. What a legend this guy is and it was great to hear what he had been up to. This email was an unusually long one and explained lots of the things him and some of the other lads had been getting up to and also highlighted some of his plans and creative ideas he has for the next coming year. I gave the lad a quick short email to say hey and show my support for his plans then came back for lunch.

After lunch Matthew was out of the office and took a trip to Lugulu Hospital to have a meeting to arrange a schedule for a Gap student that is coming to visit Kenya. I was initially going to travel with him to see the place and area but it could have meant that for some time I would have been waiting around when I could have been back at the office progressing
Towards the end of the day I met up with Edgar and Dennis who were waiting by Roel and Marianne’s house for the Fundi’s to finish their meeting so they all could begin moving some tomatoes from the garden and plating them on the farm. It got late but finally they began to transfer the tomatoes onto the farm. Edgar went home to run some Milk errands so I helped a little with the positioning and re-planting of the tomatoes. After getting a small section of the farm planted we made our way back to firstly stop off at Edgar’s home to pick up some Milk for Anne.

Tonight we were eating over at the family’s house so dinner was later than usual. As it was the last evening for Roel, Marianne and the two lads, we had dinner on the large dining room table served with kuku, chapatti, mashed banana, sikumu and it was awesome. We all ate a lot and to show my appreciation I helped with drying afterwards in the kitchen.

Thursday morning there was just me and Matthew for breakfast as the family had left for Kisumu early in the morning. We ate our breakfast then headed to the office for a normal days work. It wasn’t long into the morning and I began to notice I didn’t feel as good as usual as I felt a little sick with stomach problems. I tried to sit with it for a while but as the morning progressed it began to get worse and by lunch time I was feeling it bad and couldn’t even stomach a meal. Matthew soon realised how serious I was about being sick as I hardly touched my food. Me and him had been doing some serious eating over the past couple of weeks, showing the people from Holland how Yorkshire lads can eat finishing the second helpings and also their left overs.

I couldn’t go in for the afternoon, I felt so sick and was worried that I could be coming down with Malaria or it could get worse. I slept for a couple of hours hoping to wake up and feel a lot better like it sometimes happens when I'm home. It didn’t. I woke up feel almost as bad if not worse, with headache and I was beginning to get cold. By the evening meal I was freezing and it didn’t help sat in the dark as there was no power. I still wanted to be sociable, I couldn’t stay stuck in the room all the time so I was kitted up in as many clothes as I could find, including Matthews hooded jumper, sat in the Simba. Apparently I looked a little bit like a homeless person as I was wearing the hat that I had got from the market and thoroughly washed. It kept me warm at least. I didn’t stop up too late hoping to go to bed and wake up in the morning feeling good as new.

Spending the night wrapped in clothes that could fill a wardrobe, I woke up feeling a little better. The sickly feeling and the headache was beginning to ease off and with no other symptoms I had already ruled our Malaria. I didn’t do much Friday morning, I just stayed around with Dennis rehydrating myself with soda and taking paracetamol at the prescribed amount of two every four hours. I hate feeling ill but I guess nobody actually enjoys it. In the afternoon I sat in the guesthouse watching some movies on the TV. I watched some more episodes of a Peter Kay comedy and also The Constant Gardener until the power began to cut out on me continuously and I became fed up with finding the correct place in the film all the time. Throughout the afternoon I was visited by numerous people to see how I was, they had heard I was sick and I was brought some chi and cake bread.

Towards the evening I was able to eat more. My apatite wasn’t back fully but at least I was able to eat a few things rather than have to avoid a meal completely. I was glad I was feeling better but hopefully one more nights rest will get me back to my usual self so I don’t have to lounge about doing nothing.

Hope you are all well x

Blog #17

2007-07-12T11:51:00.000+03:00

I am really enjoying being part of this Gap Programme here in Western Kenya, but I have to say how much I appreciate the fact that this weekend I was allowed to spend most of the weekend in Bungoma, as it was exactly what I needed to refuel myself for the remaining month stay I have left here of my African experience.

Saturday morning I woke up for breakfast where Matthew had already left to find us a decent affordable television for the guesthouse lounge. I spent the morning trying to get a little more sleep and then woke up for a shower and got my stuff together that I would need for my over night stay in Bungoma. I went to the Cyber centre to check some emails before coming back to the guesthouse to chill awaiting the return of Matthew. He arrived back earlier than planned with a TV that looked pretty nice that we would install in the room when we returned from our trip. We waited around and had lunch before making our way for a Matatu to take us to Bungoma for a weekend break.

On the Matatu we were all fired up and happy to be able to have some time away from Kimilili and especially for me to see a little more of Kenya. We spend about an hour on the Matatu and the journey cost us 75 shillings each. We arrived in Bungoma at around 3pm and head straight for the cash point to draw out some funds needed for the accommodation and also some other expenses I owed to Matthew. We had several attempts at trying to find a cash machine that was willing to give us some cash as most seemed to be out of order, but finally after sometime we withdrew our funds and head to the hotel using a Boda-Boda.

We arrived at Pamus Hotel just as it begun to rain heavily. We looked round for the reception which was situated outside where we filled in our details and paid the lady 800 Shillings for our stay in a room that occupied a double and single bed with a shower and wash basin. We collected our room keys and went to the room to get changed into some cleaner clothing. After getting changed in our simple but decent bed room, we walked over to the hotel restaurant to get some food, avoiding the rain.

We had a few Sodas whilst waiting for the rain to stop. It didn’t look to be ending anytime soon and we didn’t fancy staying in the hotel restaurant for the whole evening, so we decided to ask the lady in the restaurant if she could phone us a Tuk-Tuk. Instead of calling us a Tuk-Tuk, which is a three wheeled small taxi car, she called for an actual Taxi which arrived within a matter of minutes. After paying the Boda-Boda’s for their unneeded service, even though they were staying anyway to shelter themselves from the rain, we left in the car to go into town to have some food and take a walk around the town, that’s if it had stopped raining by then.

Arriving in town it had stopped raining so we decided to take a walk around the town before we stopped off at a café to have something to eat and relax. We looked round a few shops and explored the town a little but didn’t see anything we needed or worth buying. We stopped off at a little cafe type restaurant and had what we love best, chips that came alongside a nice little side salad. After making a slight mess by dripping bits of tomato sauce on the table cloth, we decide to have a final look around the town before heading back to the hotel as it would soon be getting dark and we didn’t know the place well enough to be staying out after dark. Using the same Taxi driver who was called Dominic, we went back to the Pamus Hotel just as it was getting quite dark. Now we knew that the restaurant had a TV in it because we had spotted it earlier on of first visit to the hotel. It looked to have satellite channels so we had the idea to sit and watch the programs it was playing while we slouched on the comfy seating. In no time at all it was 11pm and closing time for the restaurant and the staff wanted to get off, so we left for our room. Matthew had brought his radio with him so we sat listening to that for a while. We soon began to send messages to the people we know at home and also call a few which cost us an absolute bomb. We continued doing this till the very early hours of the morning then went to sleep for some well needed rest.

I woke up during the night to find Matthew had either not put his mosquito net on properly or he was a very messy sleeper. I could hear the buzzing of a mosquito in my net as the net I was using wasn’t what I would exactly call “top quality” with holes and tears that even a rhino could probably sneak through. I quickly returned to sleep and surprisingly didn’t have any crazy dreams like usual, well not that I can recall anyways.

Waking up bright and early we packed up and left for a last look around the town and grab some breakfast. We took egg and toast at the restaurant then got a Boda-Boda into town. There wasn’t much left to do in Bungoma as it wasn’t exactly the most exciting place in the world but I was glad I had got to see what I had. Wanting to get back before lunch we got on a Matatu from the loading bay where we waited about 10 minutes for the bus to move and get us back home. Being sat on a crowded bus of people early in the morning surely makes you feel tired again. I wanted to sleep and sat with my hand resting against my head as we ventured along the long virtually straight roads.

We left the Matatu and walked back to the guesthouse, the staying up late and talking had really caught up on me and I felt as if I could do with another 8 hours sleep. Back at home I decided as they weren’t expecting us for lunch that I would go back to bed and get some rest prepared for the afternoon and the rest of the evening. I did but only slept for a couple of hours waking to go find Matthew and Dennis. I met Matthew on his way back from the office and I was hungry so suggested we could go grab a bite to eat from town just to see me through until the evening meal. We grab some chips to take away and headed back to the office check some emails. I ate my chips while Matthew visited the house of a man he knows and then we both went back to install the new television and had dinner with the people from Holland.

In the evening I was called up by my parents where we had a chat for a while. The lads and Roel and Marianne were doing there own thing in the guesthouse, reading and doodling, so I decided to head for my room and stayed there for the rest of the night.

It had been a good weekend and nice to break away from the normal routine of life in Kimilili. Hopefully I will have the chance to see other towns before I return home in what is nearly only a month’s time.

God Bless x

Blog #16

2007-07-09T15:37:00.000+03:00

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and it’s completely dark and I'm not talking about any of this wait a few minutes and your eyes will adapt darkness. Yeah I'm talking about full blown, I need to eat a sack load of carrots darkness, and you soon become very reliant on either a torch or your mobile phone as a flash light to find your way to the toilet. Luckily my room is only small and fortunately the route to the loo is always the same, however hard I dream the walls never seem to move and I always seem to make it there in time without any accidents.I wake up frequently, maybe its too much Chi in the evening I don’t know, but all I know is I often need to go and I've been struggling to hold a good nights sleep for a while, especially with the constant crazy dreams going on.

On the way back from the office Monday evening I noticed that my bike pedal was on its last legs and I had been avoiding get it fixed for a couple of weeks now and I think it was time something was done about it. After suggesting we took the bike to the Fundi with Matthew, we went to the guesthouse to drop off our bags that had our laptops in, and then we would head into town for the repair job. Back at the guesthouse while we waited for Matthew to get his act together, I sat talking to Dennis. I pointed out the problem with my bike and explained to him our plan of getting it fixed this evening. As I was discussing this with him he squeezed my front break slightly and it snapped. Another job to be done with the Fundi but fortunately we were just about on our way so we could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. In town we stopped off at a store where Matthew purchased 4 new pedals, 2 for my bike and 2 for his, these were blue metal ones and would hopefully be stronger, and he also purchased a new break to replace the snapped one. Meeting with the Fundi we discovered that we would have to wait around twenty minutes for him to finish his current repair job, but with dinner not far away and huge dark rain clouds creeping over the top of us, we decided we would call back in the morning and get the repair done then.

Luckily I could still ride my bike. I had one brake working and the pedal hadn’t fallen off yet so I could still use both feet. I rode back as Matthew pushed his bike and we were in time for dinner. After dinner we all sat around in the guesthouse doing our own things. I wrote up my blog and we talked for a while. I then received a call from my folks on my mobile towards the end of the evening. I had missed several calls as they attempted to contact me yesterday so we had our weekly discussion and then I called it a night.

Tuesday morning I had breakfast then returned to my room. I laid down on my bed and was fast asleep again for an unplanned hours rest. Waking up shocked at the fact I had dozed off, I got dressed and washed again and went to the offices to meet Matthew. I walked to the offices as he had taken my bike to be repaired, I half expected him to be gone by now and in town with the Fundi. I met him at the gates where he was just on his way to get the bike repaired. We decided to go back to the guesthouse, pick up Matthews bike also, which had a puncture, and then go into town together. In town we left the bikes at the Fundi being repaired with the replacement parts we had purchased the day before and decided to have a drink of Soda at Mount Crest while we waited to collect them. We sat around waiting for about 25 minutes talking and discussing thing then made our way back for lunch at the slightly earlier time of 12.30pm.

Lunch was earlier today because Jane was leaving at around 1pm and when we arrived in the dining room, Jane was still packing her gear together into her suitcase as she was delayed during her last minute meetings in the morning. We began eating at around 1pm and were soon joined by Jane. Afterwards I helped Jane with the closing and stringing up of her suitcase to make sure it stayed closed throughout the journey. When Jane arrived 3 weeks ago the handle of her suitcase had snapped off so during her time here she had it repaired at the Fundi. He looked to have done a nice tidy job of attaching a new handle to the suitcase which was a wedding gift in the 1960’s, but on the travels carrying it to the front of the guesthouse the handle began to come away from the case. Trying to give it extra support we re strung the case adding more of the thick golden string around and along the case tightly. We saw her off approaching 2pm where she rode shotgun along side Anne as she drove to Kisumu.

The rest of the day was very ordinary. I spend a lot of the afternoon developing and modifying the website and in the evening sitting in the guesthouse.

Wednesday morning I began at the office writing up some material for the website. The power was off for some time with heavy rains the night before but then returned mid morning. I went back to the guesthouse after running out of steam and ideas for the material I had to write, where Matthew and Dennis were testing some Televisions for the guesthouse. The closest we had to a working TV was one that didn’t accompany a remote and looked like something possibly from an old film with buttons to change the stations. The guys attempted to tune in the stations and managed to come up with a couple of pictures on screen but these were pretty much shocking quality. The sound wasn’t right cracky either, with a screeching sound constantly in the background. Matthew was sorting himself out before we went to the office, so I waited around attempting to watch the TV. I was watching the news where they were broadcasting the release of Johnston the journalist. I watched the same clip possibly about 12 times of him being taken to a car and watched them drive away in safety. It was good to watch something at least, even over the top of the screeching and poor display.

We shared our lunch alone, just Matthew and I as Roel and Marianne were using the day to visit El Doret and purchase some furniture for their house. After lunch we continued on to the office then came back in the evening to watch 15 minutes of the legendary Art Attack. After watching the crazy hands and the talking head Matthew and I had a stroll into town where we spotted Dennis and Edgar in the Pioneer mobile phone store talking to Peter the owner. We spent sometime talking to the guys then headed back for dinner. Watching Big Daddy was the main entertainment for the evening, so we sat in the lounge watching this with still no sign of Roel and Marianne.

Thursday morning saw another power failure so we decided while we couldn’t use our machines we would have the meeting with Lois that we really should have had a couple of weeks back. Spending an hour or so we ran through how the Education System here in Kenya works and learned a lot that will stand me in good stead with this project. Once the power came back, I neatly rewrote my notes into a form that was much better for me to understand and use for material. I spent most of the day doing this with a few more brief power failures throughout the afternoon. In the late afternoon I returned back to the guesthouse where the two lads had arrived from their journey from Holland and their overnight stay in Nairobi. We sat chatting for most of the evening and learned how Roel and Marianne had experienced trouble with the Landrover the day previous which lead to them being late home. We shared some Dutch biscuits in the evening that the lads had kindly brought from home.

I began Friday morning by blowing up a couple of balloons for Marianne as it was Roels 58th birthday and she wanted to make the dining room a little more decorative. After wishing Roel a Happy Birthday I went to the office for an hours work.

At around 10.30 pm we went to Kimilili Boys school where Luke and Yip, the lads from Holland, had arranged for 4 schools to come together to participate in a football tournament. The Harambee Foundation is the name of the charity in which the family from Holland help contribute towards schools here in Kenya. They visit schools and supply them with funds and equipment and today they were running this tournament as a fun event. We hung around until 1pm where we watched the first two games take place. The teams were all dressed in their athletics uniforms which consisted of mainly a T Shirt with the colours of their schools. Kimilili Boys, Kamusinga, Lutonyi and Kamingichi were the four Primary schools taking part in the day. The first game we saw ended with the score 0-0 and the second saw a two nil victory for Lutonyi.

After spending some more time at the office after lunch we made our way to watch the remaining games of the tournament and show our support. Today there was going to be no Final as there were time issues with the students needing to get home before dark so the scores were all tallied up at the end of the day. After all the games had been played and scores were recorded, the teams and certain players were awarded prizes. The lads had brought over football shirts and trophies from home to give out to special players. The awarded players all came forward for a photo and their prize. Kamusinga was the winning team of the day and they received a trophy for their achievements. Matthew and I followed the team on our bikes as they walked home from winning the tournament and they were so happy and showed it by chanting and parading all the way home.

We still had a little time before dinner so we left the parade of blue uniformed school children outside the office. We were visited by a man who Matthew must know and he showed me a CD he had wrote and produced so I gave it a listen on my laptop. It was Gospel music with some songs in English but most in Swahili. It was nice to hear and he seemed very pleased and happy with his work.

The evening meal allowed me and Matthew to be fed more than usual with lots of food left over to be swallowed up. When we had finished, not a single plate was in the same position it had been first placed in. I was definitely full but because it was a birthday evening we were presented with a special birthday cake. Occupying 21 candles, Roel had the job of blowing them all out from the cake. We shared this and while doing so the power was out from 8pm. It didn’t last so long, maybe 15 minutes or so, and unlike usual we had been warned by the electric company that there was going to be a short power cut. They had explained the power would be out from 8 and that they couldn’t say how long for. Everyone expected to be 8 in the morning so we were slightly shocked it happened when it did.

We spent most the evening playing Uno on one of the wonky tables from outside. After wining one of the 5 or so games, I retired to my room to get my rest for the weekend which would involve a short break away in Bungoma, a town about an hour away.

Blog #15

2007-07-05T17:07:00.000+03:00

Day 43 in the Big Brother House

Sometimes it feels a little like Big Brother, mainly for that fact that you don’t really get an insight into what is going on in the “outside world”, so to speak. I haven’t had the opportunity to watch much television along my stay and definitely haven’t had the chance to catch any of the international news. There must be a lot of flooding and disasters happening back home and I have only managed to find out about this from emails from my family.

So I started off my Friday morning at the office while Matthew did a few jobs at the guesthouse trying to make it a little more pleasant and tidier for the guests in the future. He was pinning back the television aerial wire against the wall using some materials he had purchased from town and hopefully we will have a TV soon for a little more evening entertainment. After he had finished, he arrived with Dennis where we then took a trip into town to purchase some more materials. Ten minutes into returning back at the office the power cut off, stopping us from continuing with our work.

As it was approaching lunch time we made our way back to the guesthouse where we could sit at the dining table with a pen and paper and plan out some more areas of our programme. We sat and also ate lunch with the rest of the guests and then sat talking for a while hoping for the power to return. It didn’t and as we had discussed a lot we were beginning to get tired and sleepy. With a Prayer and Fasting session to come in the evening I decided I wouldn’t mind having a nap just to regain my energy for what may be a long evening ahead of us.

After a two and a half hour sweaty sleep, I woke up and remembered I had left my bike at the office and would only be returning for the Prayer and Fasting session in the evening for the chance to pick it up, and by then it would be dark. I decided to be responsible and make my way back to the office alone, not wanting to wake Matthew as he seemed very tired earlier and if he hadn’t woken by now, he must be exhausted. Getting to the office I noticed that Matthew was already there along with my bike, so we stuck around for a couple of minutes to type up a few documents then came home for dinner.

After dinner at around 7pm in the pouring rain, we made our way to the office hall for the Friday night Prayer and Fasting session. Arriving safely but muddy, we found ourselves the usual spot towards the back of the hall on the light blue benching provided. This session finished at 11pm and afterwards Matthew was asked if he could send an email to the UK before we went home. We made our way over to the Cyber Centre as Matthew had the key for the main door and we were hoping that Robert, the IT Technician, had left the key in the discussed spot. He hadn’t left it anywhere to be found so we couldn’t continue through to our offices where our laptops were, so we stayed on the main centre computer, scanned the documents and as quickly as possible and sent the email to the UK. We then made out way home, using out mobiles at torches then made our way to our rooms.

I decided to relax this Saturday morning as I had some pretty poor nights sleep, always tossing and turning and falling in and out of sleep. After breakfast I decided I would prepare all my clothes together that needed some attention and collect them into my bucket for washing. I also gave my hair a cut then had a nice warm shower to get me going for the day.

I washed a few T Shirts and trousers and half heartedly attempted to wash some white socks that were very heavily caked in mud. The majority of the white material appeared red. It had worn deep into the material and I really didn’t have the motivation to scrub the socks in an aggressive manner to give them the glowing white effect they should have. Leaving them to soak and letting Edgar give them a little attention, they had a reasonable wash but when they were hanging on the line, they didn’t look very nice placed next to my spotless white T Shirts and black linen trousers.

Leaving the clothes to dry, I hung around with Matthew for a while in the Saturday afternoon sun. Felling very lazy and avoiding the opportunity of watching a DVD, we both decided to have another afternoon sleep which would be for the second day running. We had a few hours kip whilst the other visitors met with different people both in and out of the guesthouse compound.
Both waking up around 4.30pm were decided we would take a walk into town, get some credit and maybe grab a snack before heading to the office for the final evening session. On our way back from town we were caught up in the rain. It was heavy rain and we had to take shelter underneath some iron roofing hanging over the front of a small shop. We stood around waiting for a dry spell so that we could make a dash for office, but we had to wait at least 25 minutes before there was an chance of avoiding sitting through what could be a long session completely drenched with water.

Arriving at the session slightly late due to being trapped in the rainfall, we were once again seated on our usual positions surrounded by people singing, clapping and moving very energetically around the room. This evening’s session didn’t last as long as I had expected as from past experiences it had lasted until around 10/11pm at night, but tonight it finished around 8.30pm. We made our way home amongst some of the family and others who lived in the same direction, avoiding holes in the road and muddy patches. On return I sat around with Roel and Marianne back in the guesthouse lounge and had a cup of Chi discussing their plans for the next day. I then went to visit Matthew, Dennis and Chris in the Simba where I found them watching Enemy of the State. I borrowed a DVD of Matthews and left for my room to watch “That Peter Kay Thing” before going to sleep.

Suiting myself up in my shirt, tie, smart trousers and shoes, I made my way to church walking along side Dennis and Matthew. I think I'm the only person who goes to church in a tie, generally others just wear a shirt, but I like to get kitted up and to be honest it’s nice to throw a shirt on and look smarter once in a while. Solomon was giving one of his very powerful and memorable talks during the service this morning and Dennis had decided to come along for support. After the service we walked back in the afternoon sun which seemed slightly hotter on my head today and I don’t know if having trimmed my hair the day previous had anything to do with it.

Back at the compound I added a few more things to the washing line then Matthew and I decided we would go for a bike ride as we didn’t have any other plans for the afternoon. Weeks previously we had found a new route so we decided to take the same route from outside an all girl school situated right of the guesthouse compound and all the way around leading us out left of the compound, very near the offices. On our way through some of the snicket back routes of Kimilili, Matthew was riding up front leading the way. As he wasn’t fully aware of where exactly we were going and couldn’t fully remember the turns we took on our previous visit, he missed the exit we should have taken to lead us out by the offices. Fortunately after travelling down various steep slops and path ways we found ourselves on a very scenic and enjoyable route that took us to areas we didn’t initially know how to get to and gave us a very pleasant journey. Stopping for a Soda in town we finished our little expedition by taking a few back roads home, allowing Matthew to ride through and slightly fall into some muddy puddles.

Back at the compound I watched as Matthew cleaned the mud from his trainers. We were then visited by Roel and Marianne as they made their way past us to the house that they are having built. They invited us for a guided tour of the land and the buildings so far, so we took a walk on before evening dinner to see the progress being made. It was interesting to see how much this place had developed since I last visited only 3 weeks ago. We saw both their house and the guesthouse that is being built. Their view is incredible and the whole housing area is situated amongst maze.

Back at home after dinner I sat down and watched the film Bridge on the River Kwai.

Blog #14

2007-06-29T10:09:00.000+03:00

I miss sausage rolls dipped in brown sauce but thats about it. Its funny how over the last couple of weeks, because I haven’t had many of the things I usually eat back home, I am beginning to get cravings for them and just imagining them makes me want them more. I have particularly grown fond of Kuku and Chapatti too and you should have seen the way both Matthew and I acted when confronted with this particular meal just the other night. We were like little kids in a sweet shop and guzzled it down that fast that if you were watching us eat it, you would have thought we hadn’t eaten in weeks.

The week started off tough once again with the house building to complete which required lots of energy and effort as we were mudding, and just as it sounds, we were basically pulling mud from the ground, making it into a clay and using it to make walls.

It was fun. Monday morning we woke up, ate, went to the office and after a short delay all jumped into the Landrover and took off to finish the construction work that had taken up most of last week. We arrived at the site where an area had already been marked out where we would get our mud from, and they had already begun soaking it with water to make it muddier and easier to break up. Today’s help consisted most of the local women in the community. There were around 8 of them with some of them quite old and at least one of them pregnant. They were carrying water in containers on their heads and pouring it in the required areas to aid with the mudding. The few guys that were around did their part by using tools to break down and shift the mud slightly, where the women and children would continuously tread in it to get the consistency right so it could be moulded.

We got our uniforms on as obviously today was going to be a messy day. Opening the box Matthew painted yesterday, he pulled out our gum boots and overalls, and then realised he had forgotten our most important equipment, the gloves. It wasn’t a big deal though, infact it made the whole process more fun and I think getting your hands extremely dirty was the whole point and excitement in mudding a house.

We were stood around at first watching the people as they had their skirts and trousers pulled up above their knees, stamping and jumping around in the muddy pit. I was hesitant at first whether to stamp around in the mud, as the boots I was wearing were a couple of sizes too big for me and I struggled to walk and keep my feet in them when just walking on a normal surface. Matthew took one for the team and made his way into the pit, carefully standing in the mud to test his ability to move. He struggled, but at the same time had a lot of fun prancing around, occasionally using his hands to stop himself from falling face first into the gooey dark mud. I had a few stamps in the mud but must admit left most of it to Matthew and took up the role of doing the mudding inside the house, creating the walls.

Matthew continued to stamp the mud and then create balls of mud about the size of a house brick, maybe slightly larger, along with others and pass them to the children who then threw them inside the house for a few of us to begin the mudding of the walls. The house soon became full with piles of sloppy mud and I began to dig out a guttering which I then filled with mud, stacked up to the roof of the house. Finger nails caked in mud and clay all the way up to my wrist, I was having so much fun and felt like I was playing a big part in getting this lady’s life more comfortable again.

We continued this until all the marked out area in which would collect mud from was completely empty. We then called it lunch time and had a little break to regain some energy because believe me its hard work bending down, picking up and stacking mud most of the morning. After lunch we all came together and began mudding the whole house. I had completed almost three walls by myself, but as soon as the rest of the community came to help, the time in which it took to create a wall increased dramatically, with more hands helping do the work. Matthew got out his video camera for the final day of recording and got some great footage of all of us doing our part on the construction of the house. Again we had children climbing up the side of the house, helping to stack mud on the top of the walls. We had elderly women stood on ladders contributing and also some of us on the ground rolling and passing up the mud.

This was a huge social event for these people and it was awesome to be involved in such a lively and productive activity. Towards 4pm we were almost complete and as planned, and luckily because the weather was starting to turn, we prepared to leave and gave the Landrover a call. Unfortunately the Landrover was unable to come collect us and with a large metal box filled with tools and equipment, it was going to be a bit of a farce getting home. We used both the Buda-Buda and Matatu for the last time to make it home and arrived in Kimilili at around 5.45pm. Trying to avoid the drunken Buda-Buda’s who desperately wanted our custom we made it back to the offices to pack away. At the office was Mike, the brother of Edgar who I met on the first day of my arrival here in Kenya. Mike had returned home from Nairobi where he is studying Law, and is now around for four months. He is a cool guy and a nice character and I’m sure he will be a good laugh and great company of the next couple of months.

We made it home for dinner absolutely shattered from working and walking, and basically just living the tiring days over the past week. I spent most of the evening hanging out in the Simba with Mike, listening to some of the Kenyan radio stations and hearing some new songs and versions I had never heard before. Most of the evening was spent sitting and talking until it was time for a rest in bed.

Tuesday became our wind down day. I spent most of it in the office writing out my blog’s and catching up with emails that I had got behind on as I had been very busy over the last week. There isn’t much to report really for today, however I did manage to get a lot of little things completed and had some time to sit and do my own thing. Both Matthew and I come home to an awesome meal made by Helen, that we felt like we hadn’t had in weeks and acted like little children. Watching another few episodes of Only Fools & Horses on DVD with Jane, we finished off the day nicely.

I started off Wednesday by giving my place a once over and collected my huge pile of washing into a bag ready to be cleaned for the weekend. I gave the room a sweep, gave the bathroom and sink a wipe down, stripped my bed and aired the room. I even gave the room a quick squirt with Mosquito repellent that I was using as an air freshener to give my room a nicer smell. I finished this around 10.30am then headed to the office leaving Matthew to finish his cleaning and Rose with a few T shirts and trousers of mine to wash.

At lunch time I came back to the guesthouse for an unexpected large meal, something we don’t usually get during the day with sandwiches being our normal lunch. In the afternoon I spent some of my time knocking together a letter for work about the things I had done and seen over my time here in Kenya.

We dedicated our evening to ripping the footage we had taken from the house construction, creating a copy onto my laptop. This took most of the evening and a lot of my hard drive memory also.

I was in the office Thursday morning and had a visit from Mary and Joy asking for the key to the Yellow room. Today we were expecting two new visitors, Raul and Marianne, and they were going to be staying in the room I had been using for my shower for over the last couple of days. After heading back to the guesthouse to give them the key and also have my shower looked at and fixed, I met up with Dennis and Edgar and we made our way to the market for the morning. On our way we stopped off at Edgar’s house to pick up Mike and then made our way to the market walking what seemed like the long way there. At the market we met with another guy, who unfortunately I didn’t catch his name, but we spent most of our time looking round the stalls at T shirts and other items in which the lads fancied the look of.

Throughout my time at the market I managed to witness a domestic, where a husband and wife were getting slightly violent and no one was doing anything to stop it, and also purchased a T shirt and hat for myself. The T shirt cost me 60 Kenyan shillings (40p?) and the hat, which I will probably never wear and only purchased because of the humorous situation we were having, cost me 40 Kenya shillings (30p?). We then took a long stroll back and arrived just in time for me to not be late for lunch.
Lunch was set out for five people although there was only Jane, Matthew and myself, with the guests not having arrived yet. Matthew told us about the DVD he had of the launching we attended at Misikhu a couple of weeks ago and how it was really poor quality. We spent some of the afternoon checking out this DVD that looked like a pirate copy it was that poor quality, and then brushed over the Transformation Kenya project before dinner.

Back at the guesthouse we met with Roel and Marianne who were sat on the veranda relaxing. They had arrived around 3.30pm and had already been to have a look at the house they are having built here, just round the corner almost from where we are staying. We had a chat and found out a little about each other and my first impressions of them were very positive. I think the time we will spend interacting with them over the next couple of weeks will be very pleasurable as they seem like such nice people. They also have their son and his friend arriving next week and I'm sure their company will be just as good. They are from Holland and have been coming here for years. Roel used to work here as a teacher at Kimilili Boys School.

After a rather large dinner from having the opportunity of extra helpings and also sharing some of Marianne’s potatoes, Matthew and I watched a Christmas special episode of our new favourite TV series.

Back in my room I realised I must have caught a lot of sun on my neck from being stood around in the market. There is no pain or irritation but ill have a pretty wicked tan in the next couple of days.

God Bless x

Blog #13

2007-06-27T12:19:00.000+03:00

I would just like to start by making it clear that we are now calling Matayo Matthew again as the other one has now left and I’m pretty sure he prefers the original and English alternative anyway.

We had arranged for breakfast to be earlier this Saturday as we needed to be at Buko Primary school for 9am as we were travelling on their coach to the district competition in Webuye. We set off after breakfast at 8.15am and caught the Matatu from town and got off just outside the path entrance to Buko School. We arrived in the school yard where there were not many members of staff around. Most importantly there wasn’t the Head Teacher around who had invited us to come on this trip, so Matthew have him a call to see where he was. He was arranging the Bus. It was now past 9am and he was only just arranging the Bus that the students needed to visit the competition. So we waited around for about an hour and the bus arrived where we jumped on and got a seat before the students all piled in. The condition of the bus was not very good in comparison to the buses and coaches used back home but nether the less it would still seat all the students coming on the journey, even if it did mean them sitting on very torn seats.

Despite our efforts to get a place on the bus before the students made their choices, we were already allocated some seats at the front near the driver. I had a window seat and was able to look out at the people and views we passed while the students on board beat drums and sang songs in excitement. The drive took around 30 minutes and we arrived outside the grounds where the competition was being held. We joined in for a group photo with the school and at this time Matthew began to get multiple phone calls on his mobile from some of the Mission staff.
There was a problem, because of the power issues the previous day, the server which networks and supplies the Internet to the multiple computers in the Cyber Centre was down. The Operating System had become corrupt and Matthew had spent most of the afternoon and evening on Friday trying to see and fix the problem. When he realised he couldn’t, he arranged for Ken, the previous IT Technician for the Mission, to come up from Nairobi with the software needed to reinstall the server to a stable and suitable state. Matthew had the key to the server room which is also his office where he runs the Gap Programme, and does other jobs for the Mission via the Communications Department. Having the key restricted the new IT Technician, Robert, from being able to access the room and the server however, Matthew was fully aware that despite Robert’s best efforts, without having the software he was unable to resolve the problem.

So after the raised awareness of the problems in the Cyber Centre, even knowing nothing could be done Matthew and I decided to cut our journey and time spent at the competition short and head back using public transport, after only seeing the many schools at the competition in their colourful costumes and catching only a few performances. We arrived back at the compound at around 2pm. Matthew gave it five minutes before Robert would realise he couldn’t do anything to improve the conditions of the server. He was right. In all fairness though, I do think there was a mix up in communications and even though the Cyber Centre was not fully functional the problem was blown out of proportion.

We left the offices and come back home where we had to find alternative things to do for the afternoon. The weather wasn’t so appealing so we decided not to do any washing, but instead decided to watch a DVD in the guesthouse lounge. After dinner I decided to see if it was possible for me to have a shower in one of the other room’s available, one with warm shower as the one I have is still freezing. I was given some keys and first tried the room next to mine but unfortunately that shower was also cold so I went to try another. The next key I had been given was to the Green Room in the main guesthouse and with the rooms being named after the colour of the walls inside, it’s quite hard to distinguish which room is which when the doors don’t exactly have signs on the outside. So I tried the key in a couple of doors but they didn’t seem to want to open, so I moved onto the next ones to see if I had any luck. I tried one door and this time the key seemed to fit but not turn. I decided I would try the handle because sometimes doors are left open, and as I tried the handle the door began to move. I had opened the door to Richard’s room, one of the regular guests who had come for the weekend, and I'm pretty sure I woke him from sleeping. I apologised several times closing the door and leaving and in slight embarrassment and in a bit of a huff because I couldn’t get a warm shower, I went back to my room and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Sunday arrived and I knew that Ken was visiting from Nairobi today and was due to get into Kimilili at around 6.30am. Matthew had already left early without breakfast and I was going to go and catch up with then after I had eaten mine to meet him. So this morning instead of going to St James Church I head off to the offices to see how much progress Ken, Robert and Matthew had made on fixing the server problems from the past couple of days. When I arrived Matthew was outside painting a metal box he had bought that he is using to store his Gap Programme equipment when he is out and about doing things in the community. Quite creatively and professionally, using a fine paint brush and the black paint used to coat his bike frame, he artistically painted “IcFEM MISSION GAP PROGRAMME” onto the blue container.

Ken still hadn’t arrived as he had somehow got on a bogus bus in the morning delaying his journey. I watched Matthew paint a little until Ken did arrive, equipt with the software and skills to get the centre up and running again. He began by talking both Robert and I through installing the Operating System onto the server. I had never seen RedHat functioning before so it was interesting to see this working. We worked through this until it got to the stage where you have to wait and cannot do anything but let the software install. We sat around discussing things and I found out a little about Ken and what he did with the Mission and what he is now doing in Nairobi.

Once the problem was fixed and lots of little technical adjustments I had never seen before and probably will never remember were done, Ken made his way back home just after lunchtime, as the trip back was long and he had work the next day. We left him and thanked him for his time and help and then made our way back to the guesthouse for lunch. After lunch we were invited to take a trip with a local and often used mini bus driver to Bungoma as he was going and I was interested in seeing more of the country I was living in.

So we spend about an hour and a half taking the trip there and back and it was nice to see the difference between the towns around Kenya. I didn’t exactly see a lot of it as we quite basically just passed through and around Bungoma. It was interesting to see the differences with this place being slightly more upbeat and popular. On our journey both there and back we were stopped by Police guards who regularly check up on larger vehicles passing up and down the main roads incase they are smuggling or carrying too many passengers.

Back home after Ughali for dinner, I managed to get into the Yellow room which occupied a hot shower and when I say hot shower I mean the complete opposite to mine. It didn’t take seconds to get warm and soon after a couple of minutes began to extremely warm as Matthew mentioned to me at the beginning of my stay. Don’t get me wrong, I'm definitely not complaining, it was nice to have a refreshing shower and not come out sneezing and shivering. After the shower I decided to have a shave and trim my hair a little. Not realising how much sun I had caught over the past couple of day, I was now left with small white areas where the sun had not seen for years. I then sat down and watched an episode of Only Fools and Horses with Matthew until I was called up by my parents for their weekly chat.

After our chat I decided to retire to bed and get a good night sleep for the mudding I would be doing on the house on Monday. Luckily last week as I was wearing overalls and my Gap T Shirts, I didn’t get many items of clothing dirty so not doing any washing this weekend was not a major problem.

Until next time, Take Care x

Blog #12

2007-06-26T10:44:00.000+03:00

Eye spy with my little eye, something beginning with PITCH BLACK! Yeah that’s right, the power has gone again so I’m sat here typing out my blog with the laptop running on its battery with only the light from the screen lighting up the whole room. The electricity has been on and off all day and the lights have been flickering a little this evening so hopefully the power will be back on soon so I can continue this blog which is definitely going to be a long one for this week.

So Monday morning I woke up after having what was a better sleep for me after I had been previously getting up about 4 or 5 times during the nights over the weekend. I made my way to the office and sat down for a little while before we were due to go out into the community and take a look at the current conditions of a very needy lady’s house in Kamukuywe. I sat down at my desk and put in the new batteries I had purchased for my camera. I switched on the camera and the screen which displays the picture you have captured or are about to take was completely white. This should have had the image of whatever I was pointing the lens at, but it didn’t appear to be showing anything. Immediately I was beginning to think it was broken and that I would have to add it to the list along with the other important things that have broken on me during my stay here. In anger and frustration I slammed the camera on the desk and to my amazement the white cleared and a picture formed, so I now know how to fix my camera if this ever happens again.

So long overdue at 11.15am we set off to have a look at the house the lady we were going to build a new one for was living in. We all crammed into the Mission Landrover where there were 3 in the front and about 6 in the back and I’m pretty sure I was coping with cramp for most of the duration of the journey. We arrived to where Joyce, the lady, was previously living and saw that her home, if you can call it that, was a mud hut not much bigger than a standard size garden shed. It had holes in both the walls and roof, which you could comfortably place your head through and clearly see what was happening outside. Recently she had moved into her neighbour’s kitchen where she was now sleeping on the floor with just a bag used to carry maze as her blanket. Even in this kitchen there were gaps for the rain to get in. It wasn’t much of an upgrade to her living conditions and she certainly desperately needed somewhere new to stay. So after we had a look around her current living arrangements and had a small talk to some of the community, we took a walk down to her son’s house where beside it we were going to build the new house. We were followed by all the local school children who trailed closely behind us between the maze in their matching green school uniforms. We arrived and spent a couple of minutes looking around at the area in which would soon occupy a new mud house.

Before we made our way back to the offices we stopped off at the leader of this local fellowships’ house. We were treated with a delicious meal of Kuku, rice, which I am beginning to love by the way, and soup to give the rice more flavour. We also had some small finger bananas and some peanuts to finish off with before we said our thank yous and goodbyes and left for a quick visit of another local fellowship on the way back. We stopped here for a short time while we were introduced, but soon after me Matayo and Matthew were taken back to the office while some of the others stayed to give a longer talk.

When we returned to the guesthouse in the evening, for dinner we had Ughali prepared for us. There were 5 of us eating and with Matthew and Simon leaving in a couple of days they didn’t want to be able to say they left Africa without having Ughali. Kenyans don’t class it as having eaten if they haven’t had Ughali and it is what every true Kenyan eats when meal times arrive. We all had a nice healthy amount of Ughali along with meat and soup so we could all say we had a traditional African meal sometime along our stay here in Kenya. After our meal Edward kindly came around to sit with us a while and discuss our days. He spent around an hour with us then left where me Matayo and Matthew began playing cards and attempted to play Dominos.

Tuesday was just another standard day in the office for me where I stayed at my desk and tried to get through as much work as possible and amend and print any documents we had produced for Simon to take a look at later in the evening. Whilst I stayed in and worked on the project Matayo and Matthew had a few trips around some of the schools I had seen on my orientation, using both Buda-Buda’s and Matatu’s to complete their journeys. I had an attempt at printing towards the end of the day, when Matayo had returned and showed me where he had kept the CD we were using to save and transfer documents. I felt like I had never seen a computer so slow in my life. I placed the CD in the drive and it took what felt like hours to load. Then when the CD actually did load, the documents I wanted to print crashed. It was frustrating and by this time I wanted to make my way home and have some time to relax before dinner.

Without any success I left the office and went back to the compound where I gave my self a hair cut and had a cold shower. Half way through shaving my hair I got a phone call from Matayo asking if I still had the key to the office as he wanted to lock up and come home. I had, but I was covered in hair, so I told him to wait 5 minutes while I finished up what I was doing. I jumped on the bike and flew onto the office to give Matthew the key. I threw him a key and jumped straight back on the bike to come home as he was going to be a few more minutes putting things away and locking up. I arrived back at home to lock up my bike and make my way in to be seated for dinner when I realised I still had the keys for the office but no longer had my room keys and the key for my lock. Feeling a bit stupid and probably being cursed at by Matayo, I hopped back on the bike and again flew back onto the office to finally supply him with the correct key so he could return.

After dinner we were again visited by Edward for a short time and Matayo and I ran through some of the Transformation Kenya documents with Simon. We had some positive feedback and also suggestions how we could improve certain areas of the project.

Today was Wednesday and we were due to begin our experience of assisting the building of a traditional African mud house for the elderly lady we visited earlier in the week. We met in the office where we were kitted out with all our safety equipment needed for the project. Gum Boots, Blue overalls that resembled prison uniforms and gloves to protect our hands while we were mudding, carrying and moving things throughout the whole experience. Matayo had stocked up well with a large carrier bag and box containing water, food and other materials needed. All this along with ourselves was slung into the back of the Landrover and we made our way to the building site.

Just before we left the office, Matthew and I were called into the Tailoring workshop as they had some material in and they wondered if we would like some traditional African dress making. We both got measured up and left the tailor to make us our tops while we went out to do our days work.

On arrival we were greeted by the children of the son who was supplying the land for building and also some other people from the community. The family had already begun digging the holes in which would later be filled with wooden poles to support the overall building. Matayo left Matthew and me to get stuck in and left with the Mission Landrover to go purchase some other supplies such as timber, nails, hammers and corrugated iron. It was hands on from the word go, where Matthew and I each paired up with the two members of the family already planning out the building area and digging holes. I teamed up with the oldest son, Ando whilst Matthew worked with the Father, Elliot on the ground. We were a little worried at first as Matayo had left us alone with the pair and we were not sure if there was going to be a language barrier. Soon we realised that the Father spoke good enough English to communicate with the both of us, Ando understood most things and I could speak a little Swahili to move things on and tell him when he was doing a good job.

Ando started by using a metal pole to dig a hole and break up the soil which I then shifted using my hands with the gloves on that had been provided. I did the job of shifting the mud creating a deeper hole for about three holes while Ando beat the ground forcefully. We then swapped and it was my turn to do the beating. I didn’t realise how much hard work it was especially in the heat and having to apply so much force to break up enough mud to be moved. Eventually after a lot of force we had dug enough holes on a rectangle shape in which poles could be planted to make the two rooms and the frame of the house.

By this time we could do no more until Matayo and Khafwafwa (Pronounced Ah-fwa-fwa) had arrived back with the supplies we needed. We had already dug and placed the poles in place and had even collected sticks and branches together to make a home made ladder.

Around lunchtime the guys arrived on Buda-Buda’s with their supplies not far behind. The three of us stepped into the shade for a couple of minutes and ate our packed lunches and drank our juice. As soon as the wood and roofing arrived we got straight back to work helping the other members of the community who were taking part saw wood and make roof frames. The children from the local school had all come to see what we were up to and sat on the grass watching us doing our jobs. The fact that the hand saw we were using was blunt didn’t do us any favours as we had to cut timber to make frames. These frames needed to be nailed in place and I now remember why I never took Woodwork Technology for GCSE at school. I did my best and helped out, learned and got better at the joinery work I was involved in. By the end of it I could actually hit a nail on my first swing and it actually stayed in the wood I had intended it to.

We spent all afternoon making the frames and packing the poles into the mud to make them secure until the sun began to go down and the Landrover arrived. Simon had arrived to see the progression of the building and took some photos of what we had accomplished in the first day. We then made our way back to the offices to pack our equipment away and go home for dinner.

Back at the offices they were beginning to lock up and most of the Mission staff had gone home. We had the African tops we had created during the day handed to us in a black carrier bag which we separated when we got back to the guesthouse. We had been told that dinner was going to be over at the house tonight as it was Simon and Matthews last evening with us and the family had prepared a meal for us instead. So we showered and Matthew, Simon and I were dressed in our matching newly sewn traditional dress, looking pretty cool I must add. We made our way over to the house at around 7 where we sat talking then began eating. We shared some lovely food as always and one of the meats I was able to eat was Gizzard. It is tradition here in Kenya, so I’m told by Matayo, that visitors get the gizzard and I was told afterwards that gizzard was actually the heart, lungs, kidneys, all the chickens’ organs joined together by ligaments. During the evening I also got to have a little tinkle on the Piano. Dennis taught me a little bit of Shine Jesus Shine, a song I remember from Primary School that is in the Hymn books here and I had fun trying to learn the keys. We had to be up early the next day as we were setting off to continue with the building and were getting picked up at 7. I gave the family some sweets I had brought from back home as a thank you gift to share out which they did, and then we all went to our rooms to bed.

I was woken by my alarm at 6am and got up quickly to get ready as I wanted to try cram a bit of breakfast in over at the house before the Landrover came to get us at 7. I made sure I grabbed a Malaria tablet as I had forgotten to take my weekly Wednesday evening dose and I wasn’t up for delaying taking it. Before Matayo and I went into the family house to have some morning Chi and toast they had prepared for us and we said our goodbyes to Matthew and Simon as they were up early to see us off. We were soon picked up on time, where we set off picking Khafwafwa on the way.

We arrived at the house where there were 9 of us ready to help. Matayo and Khafwafwa left the site and headed into town to get some more supplies for today’s work. I was left to assist and watch as the other male members of the community levelled up the posts, nailed them in place and erected the roofing frames onto the top of the house. There were five frames which were placed on the top of the house each measured and positioned an equal distant apart. The guys and I had all helped and lifted the roof frames into place whilst 2 members clung to the top of the house and nailed them. This lasted most of the morning and as the sun began to get stronger, lifting and carrying began to get tiring.

Matayo and Khafwafwa had returned, however there was a slight delay for the supplies they had purchased to arrive. Bearing in mind if wood or iron is purchased there are no Transit vans or Lorries to transport the equipment, they are all carried on the back of Buda-Buda’s which must be hard work. The arrival of the supplies were two hours late but luckily we were able to be getting on with the constructing of the frames for the in and outside of the house. This involved cutting and placing thick tree branches along the walls of the house and nailing them all the way round with a distance of around a foot / 30 centimetres in height between each one. The branches were not always long enough to roach the whole way down one wall of the house, so sometimes it required two branches to fill the whole distance. These had to be held in place and nailed into the wooden poles that had already been placed the day previously. If you are beginning to get confused about exactly what I mean, take a look at the photos I have taken and posted and hopefully this will be clearer than my explanations.

So I had to hammer the nails into the tree branches then all the way into the wooden poles holding up the house. I'm not a hammering kind of guy so it took my a few attempts to once again hit the nail and keep it in the wood. I eventually got the hang of it and gave the nails a right beating. It was fun and we had a joke and a laugh as we worked around the house trying to complete it before the end of the day. We got quite a good way through working on the whole house when a few children from the local schools, who must have been friends of the family, began to nail and help saw wood. One advantage of having the children around was that they could climb onto the branches and hold and hammer them in the high places. I'm sure these children had done this before and it was really rewarding to see their enthusiasm as them helped.

After I broke a hammer trying to pull a nail out of some wood, we continued completing the inside and outside of the house with the branch frames. It was coming together and looked pretty neat and I was looking forward to seeing the end result. You would never build a house like this in England so just having the experience of seeing the house form was very satisfying in itself.

Towards the end of the working day it was time to begin fixing the iron to the roof of the house. This only required a few hands to help so Matayo and I sat back and watched as two guys helped lift the iron onto the roof and Khafwafwa nailed the iron to it. The children flocked around us and all wanted their pictures taken when they saw our cameras. I took a few and so did Matayo and we continued to make a few new friends as children arrived who we hadn’t seen before. Navie and Rego were two children who had been helping us for the past couple of days and were top little lads with lots of energy and enthusiasm. Between the three of us we mastered the routine of high five-ing each other and they also showed us how they can pose quite professionally for the camera. After the roofing had been finished the local Fellowship arrived for a prayer session on the land beside the building area and then later came around and prayed for the house. Once all was finished for the day we made our way home on Buda-Buda’s and a Matatu as all the Mission Landrover’s were in use.

In the evening we were very tired from the long and hard couple of days we had just had so we sat down and relaxed and watched a few episodes of Only Fools & Horses before we called it a night.

Friday I woke to bacon, chips and tomato that Jane had quite kindly requested the day previously. It was a good start and prepared for a little for more building which would start later today was we were setting off at 9.30am. Today there was no transport to take us to Kamukuywe so we had to make our way there carrying our equipment on a Matatu and Buda-Buda. We weren’t stopping for long today as there were only 2 doors and 2 windows to fit in place. I watched and assisted, helping hold and nail the windows and doors in place and this task was completed fairly quickly as we left and arrived back at the offices around 2pm.

One thing that Matayo and I both agree was very cool about the short few hours we spent with the doors and windows was the fact we had a radio playing and something very touching happened because of it. Matayo had his video camera and was taking footage of the nailing of the windows. As he was recording a song came on the radio and it was perfect for background music to the whole situation and just had the perfect sound and feel for our involvement. Maybe its one of those instances where you have to be there to experience the feeling we got from it, but as the song Fix You by Coldplay played and as we watched the construction taking place, it really sent a shiver down our spines and made us feel good.

We arrived back and there was no power. Matayo had to stay at the office for a while to write up some notes but as there was nothing I could do he suggested I went back and got some rest while there was no electricity to run my laptop. Back at home I had a little nap however was woken a couple of times by the singing of Rose, one of the assistants at the guesthouse. She was loud but I wasn’t having a great sleep anyway so I got up and lounged around for a while until dinner. After dinner we sat around in the dark with the power flickering on and off occasionally which leads me to where I began this blog.

Hopefully the power will come on soon but if not I’m pretty sure I can find alternative things to do with my time such as sleeping, because again I’ve got to be up early in the morning as I am travelling with Buko school to watch their entry in the district choir/dance competition.

Take Care x

Blog #11

2007-06-24T11:34:00.000+03:00

So the weekend got off to a bad start with the pedal of my bike falling off. Just around the corner from town as I put pressure on my left pedal, it decided to slide itself off, leaving my foot propped on a both oily and greasy piece of metal in place of where the pedal used to be. Luckily we were on our way to town to the Post Office to post some items such as letters and postcards for Simon, and on the way was the Fundi we often use. On the way past we dropped in the bike. We left the bike with him and headed to the Post Office, posting the items and Matayo purchased some stamps. Matthew had gone to the Weekend Challenge for the day so it was just me and Matayo chilling for the weekend.

After the Post Office we went back to the Fundi where we had to wait about half an hour for him to return with the bike. Apparently he had just “nipped out” for a test ride on the bike but personally I reckon that he had the urge to pull some wheelies and decided to take the bike for a spin after it had been fixed. So once we got the bike back we came home with some paint and I sat and watched Matthew as he painted the bike rack he previously bought with red undercoat preparing it for a soon to be professional finish.

We hung around painting and discussing life back at home waiting for lunch time. It soon came round and we went to the guesthouse to see what we were having. At this time there was a meeting taking place across in the conference room where Solomon, Simon, Ruth, Jane, Anne and some other people I didn’t really recognise, were discussing medical issues for most of the day. So lunch was slightly later but because of the meeting we had upgraded our meal and had Kuku, Chapatti, mashed Banana and cabbage. I had never seen the guesthouse dining room so full. I was used to eating with usually the 3 or 5 of us but with a much bigger party today, the room was differently set out in a T shape with extra special napkins and a much livelier atmosphere.

In the afternoon around 4.30pm, we jumped on our bikes and head on to the junction by Dreamland to meet Jonah where he was going to show us where Matayo could purchase some trees in the future for the Gap Programme. We went to three nurseries in which families grew a variety of fruit trees with some examples being Avocado and Eucalyptus. The houses in which occupied these nurseries were very far out in the rural interior, where we had to travel quite far on snicket type roads to get to there. The third nursery we visited the man showed us around his Shamba. He then introduced us to some of his children, his first born and third born, and also showed us his hutches where he bread both rabbits and ducks. This was how he made his living and he was really proud that two Mazungu’s had visited his house and were interested in what he had to offer, infact he was so proud that he offered us five small avocado trees as a thank you gesture. Its amazing really, these people have hardly anything but are so generous and willing to show their appreciation and give things to you when they really need everything they have for themselves.

After the cycle ride through the out backs of Kimilili we came home to dinner. In the evening, Jane showed us a DVD she had brought from home, it’s called “A Born Again Christian” and had some interesting ways in expressing what exactly a Christian is.

Sunday came and we took Matthew to St James Church to see what it was all about as this was his only Sunday here in Kimilili. Matayo and I cycled along side Matthew as he rode on a Buda-Buda on the less messy route to the church.

After church we came home and I did my washing which I had postponed until today whilst Matayo laid a second coat on the bike rack. Half way through my washing session, Matayo joined in and began washing his extremely large collection of boxer shorts and other items of clothing.

In the afternoon Matayo went to the office so I stayed back at the compound and sat and read a book that Anne had lent the guesthouse. I read a chapter until Dennis showed up with the intention to go check on his tomatoes at his plot. The sun was beginning to go down for the day and we took a nice walk over to his tomatoes which at this time hadn’t yet started coming through.

In the evening we all sat around and discussed the weekends we had and what lay ahead for us this week. With the construction of a mud house coming up, this week was going to be busy and exciting so we made our way to bed with this in mind and got some rest.

Blog #10

2007-06-19T09:41:00.000+03:00

So we told a guy today that we thought he must have a PHD in Rushing. He said he could only speak English and Swahili and that we better keep up on our bikes if we wanted to make it home in time for dinner.

One down, two to go, and it doesn’t seem like two minutes since I arrived here in Kimilili. I've experienced so much, and this has been reinforced this week with the arrival of new visitors with some starting here at the stage I was just four weeks ago. The days have been significant however it has been the evenings that have been full of the excitement.

Monday was John’s final day with us and we began the day with breakfast. I then continued the rest of the day working on the website. Today John had borrowed my bike, he was going for a final look around Dreamland and needed some transport to get there, as David, from Stocks and Supplies, had the Mission bike and was making his way there on that. Unfortunately on his travels he had a slight accident but luckily he wasn’t hurt and it was the bike that felt the most pain. He returned the bike to the compound at lunchtime so when evening came and it was time to make my way home, I had to take a stroll in the thunderstorm rather than a quick getaway on my “Hummer” as Dennis likes to call it. So we had a special meal prepared for Johns last supper. Kuku (the correct spelling) and Chapatti and some nice sweet Oranges freshly cut for desert. In the evening Matthew was preparing for his trip to Kisumu to collect the new visitors as well as pick up some supplies, and we said our goodbyes to John before going to bed relatively early.

Tuesday I woke up to breakfast alone. Today I was going to be working completely on my own as Matthew had set off to Kisumu at 6.30am and John had left for Nairobi at 7am. I took this opportunity to crack on with things and work through the project without any distractions as I was in the office on my own and could concentrate and allow my ideas to flow. After working at the office I came home where I found Dennis and Edgar hanging out at the Simba so after dropping my things off in my room, I went round to sit with them for a while. The clock hit 6pm and I knew it would be time for my evening meal, but to my surprise the guesthouse was locked up to which later I found out I would have the enjoyment of eating over at the house with the family for the evening.

Dennis had to go and get some milk for the family and this involved us taking a walk along the road to Edgar’s house. By this time it was beginning to get dark and the weather wasn’t looking as if it was going to be on its best behaviour either, but as there was a need for the milk we took the walk on, aiming to be back before it was too dark to see our hands in front of our faces. As we walked along the streets, which began to occasionally light up by lightening, the atmosphere began to get slightly less attractive however I did feel quite safe on my travels.

Late into the evening we began to eat where we all sat around the large table in the family area of the house to a very nice and well prepared meal by the girls. We all shared the food placed amongst the table and both Dennis and Ruth taught me a little more Swahili. I was on my own and it was great to be invited to eat and share my evening with the family.

Still on my own Wednesday morning, I woke up and continued my life and work as I normally would any other day here. I was expecting the visitors and Matthew to arrive back at the compound today but towards the middle of the morning I received a phone call and message telling me the visitor’s morning flight from Nairobi had been cancelled. Matthew had arrived safely in Kisumu the day previously and because there was no need to collect his visitors today, he could come home earlier in which he did and made it back for lunch.

After lunch and a discussion with Matthew about what he had purchased and the mishaps that happened along his travels, we head to the office and continued on with our work. I was creating a box template that could be printed onto card and folded to make a money box for one of the Transformation Kenya campaign’s and it was coming together very well looking very appealing.

Back in the evening, both Matthew and I had the pleasure of having our evening meal again over at the family’s house. We shared another delicious and well prepared meal in which I slightly helped clear away after, and finished off the evening with Dennis playing some Hymns on the Piano and some late night prayers.

Thursday began with me desperately trying to get the correct measurements and sizes for this box template, so that it could be completed and printed off to test the folding. While I did this, amongst with other things, Matthew tried to get the television at the guesthouse fixed using a local Fundi, but unfortunately didn’t seem to have any luck. I arrived at lunch time to find a television with its back removed and a Fundi fiddling with wires and knobs aiming the TV at a mirror perched on one of the chairs, as a guide and vision for doing his repairs.

We had some visitors taking a look around both the IcFEM compound and the guesthouse and had the pleasure of meeting and having a little chat with them. We arrived back home after a day of work and soon met the new arrivals that were going to be staying with us all for different lengths of time.

We first met Jane and Matthew, Grandmother and Grandson that had been due to arrived the day before but had the unfortunate case of a cancelled flight. They pulled up using Hosea, the taxi driver I arrived with, with quite a few bags in which we helped them carry along to their rooms they were to be staying in. Leaving the new arrivals to settle in and have a little rest, we made our way over for what was my third consecutive meal at the house and awaited the arrival of Solomon and another new arrival, Simon Daniels, from Nairobi.

We ate without the arrival of both Solomon and Simon, scoffing Chapatti’s and meat quickly into our mouths and chatting amongst ourselves, not at the same time though. Jane had been here previously, but it was Matthews’ first visit to the IcFEM Mission but not to Africa as a whole. So Jane had a bit of a catch up with things that had gone on over the time and we all continued eating and making our way through dinner. We finished and Ann had kindly prepared some Pineapple crumble and ice cream in which we shared between us.

During this desert Solomon and Simon arrived back from their long and tiring journey, and seemed very eager to greet everyone and eat. They sat at the table while we sat around in the living area and ate our crumble and ice cream. By this time Jane and Matthew had had a long day and we getting tired. With prayers not looking to be for a while, they excused themselves and head off to bed for the evening. It wasn’t long before I made a move myself as I was sleepy and was looking forward to a nice sleep in a newly cleaned and prepared bed. Along with Matthew and a few others, I made my way over to my room to hit the sack.

It was nice to start Friday morning with the new visitors. We ate together with the exception of Jane then made our way over to the offices for morning devotion and our days work.

At 9.45am we hopped on our bikes while Matthew (the new visitor, we are calling the old one Matayo, the Kenyan alternative) road a Buda-Buda along to Dreamland where I had the enjoyment of pretending I was on Ground Force. I was Alan Titchmarsh and I was planting trees, Avocado trees to be precise. I have pictures that I am going to post of me “getting my hands dirty”, which is something that I don’t normally do. I've never done any gardening or tree planting in my life, but it was an experience and something I probably wouldn’t mind doing back at home which I’m surprised with. We planted 10 trees altogether in which I planted 3, inserting the trees into a newly dug hole, removing the plastic bag holding the roots and using my hands, covered the lower part of the tree with the surrounding dirt. I made a great job of the trees I planted but after washing my hands I made my way back to meet Anthony at the office, leaving the two Matthews to take their trip around the Dreamland school and Medical Centre.

I made it back to the office with only 2 flys managing to enter my body, one through my eye and the other in my mouth. I wouldn’t exactly call it a pleasant ride back, but it certainly allowed me to sweat out some toxins and my fitness level is certainly beginning to increase.

So after lunch Matayo and I began to print out our documentation for my Transformation Kenya project, filing it all together so we can assess it and also show certain people for their opinions on the printing of it. We continued to do this while the new Matthew began his blog section for the Gap programme. He used the cyber café machines to fill in his online journal then came to our office towards the end of the day.

There wasn’t long to go before evening dinner, but back in the office Matthew had told us about some of our plans for the week ahead. We are possibly going to be working on the construction of a house and for this we were going to require some tools and overalls to keep of efficient and clean when building. Matayo had previously purchased gloves, boots and overalls for his Gap programme students and today I volunteered to try on one of the uniforms as an example as we would need to wear them in the next coming week. So I decided I’m more of a medium kind of guy so I reached for the medium sized blue overall and unpacked it from its plastic wrapper. Pulling it over my trousers I quickly realised that this uniform may be slightly small on me and that wasn’t just because I had trousers on. I got it to my crotch area and didn’t have the confidence to pull it up any further, so I removed the blue material from my body. The next size to try was extra large as Matayo had only purchased these two sizes for some reason. Extra large was still small on me surprisingly but too big to just wear as trousers, fastening it at the waste, so I think I’m going to settle for a medium and just wear it as a half outfit with my Gap team T shirt on top.

In the evening we spent our time hanging out in the guesthouse after a very large meal for dinner. Matayo began some more platting while the rest of us sat around talking. We were considering whether to watch a DVD, but we thought it would be much better to give it a miss allowing the visitors to talk and bond a little more.

God Bless x

Blog #9

2007-06-15T11:49:00.000+03:00

It’s Sunday evening and Matthew is almost ready to purchase his second batch of the three colours of cotton we use to make wrist bands. I have still got plenty left as I have only made about 7 so far, but when Saturday morning came he was eager to buy himself some cotton and crack on with the whole process where he is now only about 100 in front of me.
No Joke.

Saturday morning and we woke up slightly later as breakfast on Saturday starts at 8 rather than 7.30. So I got an extra 30 minutes snooze and then after we went into town to buy a pole to hold the TV aerial in place to hopefully receive a reception for the TV we have but cannot yet use. Originally we were going to go on a bike ride but the weather wasn’t so great plus we really wanted to get this TV working so we had a little more to do when we weren’t getting on with our project. We bought a pole that was 20 foot long. It was half an inch thick and it cost 1000 Kenyan Shillings. That’s just short of a tenner and is a bit expensive but never the less we still made the purchase. There were three of us, Me, Matthew and Dennis but we sent the pole back home on a Buda-Buda, which made its way home very safely and dropped off the pole at the compound. We went round a few more places until finally making our way back home.

Even though the weather wasn’t so great, it was still warm so we decided to do some washing. I didn’t have much this week, just some socks and underwear and a couple of T shirts and trousers, so I threw them in a bucket and got them washed. Matthew and I were discussing the whole process of “making wrist bands” and we came up with a brilliant idea in conjunction with the Transformation Kenya programme. Originally with the Children of IcFEM section, at the end of the year, children who had made a donation would receive several things such as certificates but would also receive a key ring as a thank you gift. We had a great idea which would help use our funding for the programme wisely and we thought instead of sending key rings, why not send wrist bands. If you were a child who had donated to a charity would you prefer to have a key ring sent or a wrist band? Better yet a wrist band made by one of the children you had been donating towards. Well anyways we were thinking of using these wrist bands as thank you gifts and even though its still early days, we are thinking of getting some of the school children involved if they would like to.

After lunch Matthew and I nipped into town to purchase some cotton balls, this time for Matthews’ purposes. Matthew began “batch processing”, cutting strips of each colour resulting in piles of about hundred being placed on the table in the lounge. I sat and watched and had a go at cutting and platting some cotton myself but didn’t do so much. He was determined to have 50 done by the time the evening meal was ready and he was certainly having a good go. I spent some time in my room relaxing and listening to some music and by the time dinner was ready, we had almost completed his 50.

Back in the lounge Matthew continued to cut cotton. A bit of alliteration for you there, not something I tend to use too often. I stuck around for a while and watched him continue to give himself a RSI, then left for my room as I was feeling a bit down for an unknown reason so I spend some time to myself reading then went to sleep.

This morning I had arranged with Anthony to go with him to Moi Kamusinga Girls boarding school and accompany him while he gave a talk on “Integrity”. Matthew and I met Anthony at the gates of the school at 8.30 where soon after his friend and band member, Lambert appeared with his guitar, again ready to accompany us with some music. We locked up our bikes outside the small staff area and the 4 of us sat around the table where Lambert played a little music to get us going. He was like one of the dudes from the group Boys to Men. I even told him, I was like “Dude, have you heard of Boys to Men, you remind me of one of them”. He knew the group and he didn’t seem to be offended so that was good. He was a good singer and guitarist too and we asked if he would be up for coming and teaching us sometime which he said he would.

So we made our way to the main hall where today’s talk was to be held. The hall was full of around 700 girls, dressed smartly in their blue uniforms with some of them stood on the stage at the front singing and playing instruments. We were shown to the front where we would sit for the two hour talk. After the students had done their little part of the service, Lambert got up with his guitar and gave a little talk before playing a few songs. He played a couple of gospel songs and even sang You Raise Me Up, which was recently re recorded by Westlife. He got the students and us to sing along with him and he was really great. They treat him a bit like a celebrity and he was really modest about his talent which was cool to see. After he finished his set, he passed over the microphone to Anthony to begin his talk.

Anthony began his talk by congratulating the girls on their achievements. They had just recently won the national athletics competition and first place was a big deal for them. They gave the loudest screams ever and my ears began to ring. He then introduced me where I came to the centre of the stage to say a few words. I spoke in a little Swahili, just asking how everyone was and said Thank you for allowing me to be here. I began to then continue in my usual approach of using my hands a lot and talking really fast, but it turned out good and the rest of Anthony’s talk went successfully also.

After the talk had finished and the 700 girls occupying the hall had ran in excitement to meet the team that had just come back from the competition they had won, we stopped off again back in the staffroom for come Chi and sandwiches. We didn’t stop long, but had a quick chat and came home for lunch.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty relaxed. I sat using the laptop while Matthew platted and John began to pack. He is leaving us on Tuesday, so right now he is getting his things together and leaving us with his unused medical supplies and insect repellents.

God Bless x

Blog #8

2007-06-11T09:28:00.000+03:00

I noticed as I was riding down the street towards home today how comfortable I have become with my surroundings and how I don’t actually think to myself, “WOW, I’m in Africa” anymore. It doesn’t feel as obvious that I’m in a foreign country, but it’s kind of reassuring to know how well I have adapted and how much I feel to have fit in, in such a short period of time.

So it was a new week and they seem to be coming and going so fast, but time flys when you’re having fun right? So we begun in the office working on creating some reward cards for each campaign section associated with the Transformation Kenya programme I am creating. I had to create 15 different cards, 4 fronts and 11 backs, as one of the cards had 7 different colours that associated with 7 different years in the scheme. Now I’ve just thought. Have I even explained to you guys what this Transformation Kenya programme is all about? I don’t think I have so ill just give you a little insight in to what the programmes aim is, just so you have an idea of the part I am playing for this charity.

So the idea of Transformation Kenya is to accelerate community development in Western Kenya, as well as encourage donations and support for child sponsorships. Here in Kenya only recently both Primary and Secondary school education has become free of charge, but parents and guardians still find it difficult to come up with the money to actually get their children to school. The main issues preventing the children from actually being able to attend school is the cost of uniforms, transport to and from school, text books, equipment and their daily dinner money. As only 20% of the over all costs involved in sending a child to school are now free, the number of children now attending school is only beginning to rise slowly. That’s where we come in with this idea of raising awareness for child sponsorships, so that people who can afford to help out these children and give them a better education and a better life, can do their part and contribute making a big difference. The Transformation Kenya programme will promote four campaigns, which each target a difference audience to raise awareness. The four target groups are High Schools, Friends of IcFEM, Children and the community. They each come with their own little catchy slogan but I won’t bore you with the list right now, so here is just one of them. “Give Poverty the Red Card”.

So I worked on these reward cards all up to lunch, trying to get my ipod to work properly but I’ve now come to the conclusion that it’s broken and the apple website is absolutely terrible when it comes to trying to get in contact about my problem. So I went back for lunch which I was really looking forward to and afterwards I went back to The Pink Room for a lie down. At 1.50pm it was time to head back to the office and I got a phone call from Matthew just reminding me on the time. I left my room and head for the guest house doors. I grabbed the handle and gave it a push and that’s when I found out I had been locked in by Mark the guesthouse Chef. Luckily Matthew was able to come to my rescue and collected the key from its safe keeping place in the dining room.

After work I came home and had a nice relaxing but boring evening. Simply because I did a bit of ironing, straightening out the clothes I washed the day before, but then I sat around chatting with the guys.

Tuesday I worked on the certificates I was going to be sending out to people who had donated towards the charity. Yesterday I had finished the reward cards so it was now time to make the templates for the certificates in the same way I did the reward cards. I worked on these most of the day, occasionally getting Matthews opinion as he skipped in and out of the office between being in a meeting and creating some brochures for another project at the mission. Lunch time came and I was to eat alone. I didn’t mind at all because I knew the staff at the guesthouse weren’t aware that Matthew wouldn’t be attending because of his meeting, so they would have prepared enough for us both which meant I got more. Tomato toasties and I mixed it with both chilli sauce and mayonnaise. It was really nice.

Back at the office I finished up the certificates and designed some letter heads. The day before Ken, a guy from the Mission, had spotted me with my ipod plugged into my laptop. He had questioned me about how it worked and how I managed to charge it, so today he brought me in his which he had been given as a gift and he wanted me to charge it for him. I began to charge this for him, but it was so dead that it wouldn’t turn on for at least an hour after it was plugged in. As the evenings are generally boring because of the fact its pitch black and the night life isn’t as lively as back home we sat in and watched the rest of Enemy of the State.

Wednesday morning we woke up and dressed ourselves in our Gap Programme Team T shirts that Matthew had created before I came. One problem with the two he had given me was they were both Extra Large. The black one, which I had chosen to wear wasn’t so big surprisingly and I could just about pull off wearing it. My red one, well that was a lost cause and there was no way I could wear it, it would just have to be memorabilia.

We were going to the launching of the first local fellowship unit and we spent the journey to Misikhu where it was held in the recently imported Mission Landrover. There was over a thousand people there and I had the privilege of sitting at the front with the rest of the IcFEM Mission staff with a video camera occasionally pointed at me, recording the whole conference. We sat there listening to Swahili, tribal languages and translations into English and I had the job, along with several others, of taking photos of the crowds of people that scattered the viewing area. The conference begun at 10am and didn’t finish until about 4pm. We were interrupted slightly by a heavy rainfall at about 3pm where some of the audience ran and took cover underneath shelters while others stood with umbrellas and chairs held above their heads as Solomon, the Director continued to speak. When the conference was over, being part of the IcFEM staff, we were eligible for the meal that had been prepared. Cuckoo, rice, chapati and soup all crammed into one dish and it was delicious.

We then left, getting a ride home again in a Mission Landrover, where this journey we were accompanied by the television crew. For some reason they seemed to think we were American and this wasn’t the first time today someone had confused us with another nationality. Earlier, at the beginning of the conference, we were introduced by the Mission staff to everyone watching at home and all the people in the audience as part of the Gap Programme Team where Matthew was the leader and we were both from England. After the conference whilst we were waiting for a lift home, one of the friendly people from the audience came to find out a little more about Matthew and me. Infact he really needed to find out the basics about us before he could find out more because he was convinced we were both German and had got confused about Matthew being the leader of the Gap Programme and thought he was the Director of the Mission. The funny thing about this little episode, other than the fact that even though we tried to explain we weren’t German and Matthew was only the leader of the Gap Programme and not the Director, was the fact that the Director himself had just given a speech for at least 3 hours and the point that he was the director was stressed numerous times throughout the day.

Back at the guest house I was faced with another meal and I was already really full. I couldn’t let good food go to waste and my plate was absolutely over flowing with spaghetti, carrots, cabbage and aubergines in sauce. I did well. I must admit, I managed to eat at least three quarters of it but was absolutely bursting and ready to explode. I spent the rest of the evening sitting still just to be safe so that the food I had just eaten stayed inside me.

I woke up Thursday morning starving. You eat tons the night before and wake up with your tummy rumbling. How does that work? Anyways, we began the day at the office. I had this idea, which admittedly sounds as if I am either about 90 or an 8 year old girl, but I had the idea of buying some cotton that I could try and make things out of in an evening when not as active. I was thinking of wrist bands or something. Maybe I could put together a little something for the folks and the guys back home, I know my friend Adam likes to wear things on his wrist so I thought at least it could possibly please him. So we went into town and found a shop that sold cotton. I purchased three balls, one green, one red and one black. These are the Kenyan flag colours and I thought it would be best to make something relevant that I could associate to my trip here for three months. I bought all three balls and it cost me 90 Kenyan Shillings. This isn’t even a Pound and you’d be surprised at the amount of cotton I had to work with, I could make loads. I've got enough people in mind though who I could make one for so I can occupy myself for some time.

The rest of the day was pretty straight forward. We had a light snack after lunch and I was able to experience a real African café. It was a small café, something that wasn’t up to the standards of the United Kingdom, but the chips I had were lovely. Kim’s Dishes was the name of the Café and I may just take a trip back there sometime if I’m still feeling a little peckish after or between meals times.

We got back to the compound and the Landrover that Matthew has bought which is being done up, is on its way and today it had been stripped of its paint in areas. It’s well on its way now so over the next couple of weeks we may see a finished product.

Friday morning on the way up the road to work and the pedal of my bike decided to fall off. It had been doing so well too as it hadn’t had any problems since it was taken to the Fundi just after it was first purchased, but right now it had decided to let me down. Fortunately I was just outside the office and there was no falling off my bike involved. After working at the office for a couple of hours, once the laptop decided to crash, we took the bike to the Fundi to be fixed. Now Matthew uses the same Fundi every time he has a problem with his bike, and he has a lot of problems with his. On this occasion because of the large amounts of work in the past Matthew has brought to this guy, he was given a discount, infact no, it was free of charge which was really kind. It was done in a matter of minutes and he even tightened up the brakes and the handle bars for me. We then head straight back to the office as I had my weekly meeting with Tony, however when we got back, he wasn’t available.

Evening came and I decided to start on using my cotton wisely to see what I could come up with. I began cutting lengths of each colours, I then tied them together and began to plat them. I haven’t done this in a long time and even when I did do it, I don’t remember doing it much. I had a go though and it started to look pretty cool. I made a couple of wrist bands and they looked pretty impressive. Matthew was impressed and he thought the idea was kind of girly at first but thought it might be a good idea to buy some and have a go himself. So I did this for the rest of the evening while watching Without a Paddle on DVD. I also got a phone call from home so I spoke to them for a while then resumed back to the sowing board where I continued to plat.

God Bless x

Blog #7

2007-06-08T09:00:00.000+03:00

Its not everyday you turn up to church with your suit trousers tucked all the way down to your ankles in your socks is it? Well it isn’t for me that’s for sure, but today was different and it was another one of those Africa experiences I had to get used to if I wanted to survive or at least have some decent clothes to bring home or use for the rest of my trip.

In my previous blog I mentioned that the guesthouse was acting as host for a prayer and fasting weekend for a local church and because of this I was allowed to move rooms for the next few days to allow me to at least get some sleep and be away from what could be another noisy but important night for the guys across the compound. I moved into the Pink Room, which was one that was situated in the main guesthouse. As the name suggests the room is pink, with pink walls, pink pillow cases and even a little pink girly floor mat for when you get in and out of the shower. It’s a lot more comfortable to both sleep in and just be in. I'm going to try and stay in this room as long as I can as it has a more homely feeling and kind of has a smell of my Grans house.

Before Friday evening was over, we had a little incident that was very funny and both Matthew and I would like to share with you. It was around 8pm and I was feeling much better health wise compared to the day before. I decided to grab my things I would need for the night if I was going to be sleeping in the temporary room for the weekend. I went into my initial room, grabbed myself a vest and some shorts, took along my toothpaste and toothbrush but before I left, I thought I would just use the bathroom. As I was stood by the toilet I looked up at the window. There was a small frog. I finished up and gave Matthew a call and was like “Dude, come have a look at this”. So Matthew came in and by this point the frog had attached itself to the window in a poor attempt to get away from me. I took some photos of the creature and then suggested to Matthew he should get rid of it before it made its way around my room and hid itself somewhere ready to jump out at me when I returned. So we tried moving it. It jumped and we made the loudest screams ever. We screamed for a second then paused while we laughed, almost crying. We then screamed a little more and took out the bed and tripped over several items spread across the room, as we made our way out of the path of this, I must emphasise, tiny creature. By this time we had picked up a mop and bucket, desperately trying to catch this frog so we could remove it from the room. Matthew kept pointing out the fact that it has red feet and said it could be poisonous. Eventually, after about 5 minutes of continuous screaming and hyena laughing, we began to make progress. As we were causing a fuss over this frog, the people who were around on their prayer and fasting weekend obviously had heard all the commotion. We turned around after trapping the frog into the corner of my sink area where we found two guys from the session stood there, holding in their hands a metal grate that each room has outside its door for you to wipe and clean your shoes on. It must have sounded like we were wrestling a lion or the most dangerous creature in the world, as soon as the guys saw what were we up against they just broke down in laughter. Luckily they didn’t think we were the biggest girls in the world, but did however come and remove it with their bare hands and let it go free into the wild.

So that was that little episode over, but it made my evening, along side with talking to the folks back home and catching up on what had been going on. I went to bed quite early as I had an early morning as I was going for a trek up Mount Elgon, a local hotspot which has a lot of interesting sights to see.

In the morning I woke up and filled myself with breakfast ready for my walk. Matthew and I were to meet Jonah at 8.30 at the junction before you reach Dreamland. We were slightly late as Matthew had to carry out a little job for someone but we got there for about quarter to nine where we had a soda and began our climb from the bottom of Mount Elgon. About 5 minutes into the walk I saw the need to tuck my trousers into my socks because of the trials of ants that could be found all across the ground, plus the fact that my trousers trailed over and beneath my shoes, so tucking them into my trousers avoided getting them dirtier but also prevented bugs making their way up again. Not long after we begun, I found myself climbing the side of a huge rock, watching very carefully where I put my feet avoiding any chance of falling or having an accident. I made it to the top and took some photos of the incredible views. It was like being on an episode of LOST, where the survivors go on a hunt for the Others’, apart from we weren’t looking for any Others’, we were just walking for the sake of seeing what Mount Elgon had to show us. Luckily I didn’t see any Polar bears or come across many dangerous creatures too closely but I did spot some rock rabbits and some male Gecko’s making their way across the land. The male Gecko’s are so colourful with a red head and a nice blue body making it stand out against the rocks. The males are poisonous, so luckily the ones I saw were far enough away.

We walked for miles and wandered through districts that had recently been under conflict over land. We were assured these were now safe and I’m glad they were, because I was so exhausted that if any trouble did come my way, I wouldn’t have been able to run away fast enough to get to safety. I had almost run out of water and soaked enough tissues to last me a lifetime, wiping the sweat from my forehead and under my eyes. At one point we found ourselves at a waterfall which was really beautiful. You couldn’t get too close as the ground surrounding it was too boggy but I managed to get close enough to remove my shirt and let the mist of water refresh and cool me down from the mid day sun. We seemed to be crawling between bushes and making our way up and down the mountain side and we seemed to be speed walking at paces I was definitely not used to. At one point I remember saying “Here, are you sure you aren’t taking us in circles or at least in a square because I really does feel like we keep walking back on ourselves”. Apparently we weren’t.

So by 1pm we were making our way back down the mountain and I was quite tired but being very patient. I think there should be like a set time you have to wait before you can call it a rest, because I’m pretty sure 25 seconds doesn’t qualify as a long enough time to get rid of a stitch that seems to be getting further and further into your side as you move. As we neared the bottom I could have become a millionaire. If I had a pound for the amount of times Jonah reassured me there wasn’t much further to go, I’m pretty sure him and I have two different interpretations of what is close and what is far. Eventually we made it back to the junction but along with us came 2 sunburnt necks and 4 very exhausted legs and sweaty feet. Not being able to face the further 10 minute walk back, we decided to be lazy and hop on the back of a Buda-Buda for the remaining ground.

Back at the guesthouse I didn’t want to eat, I just wanted to re hydrate myself with water and because I drunk so much of it my stomach became full. I should be been starving but because I was so drained the thought of eating didn’t appeal to me unlike every other time I have sat down at that table. I ate a sandwich or so and also prepared one and tucked it away in a napkin for later. I was supposed to begin my washing after lunch but there was no way I had the energy to sit out in the sun and aggressively clean my clothes. I spent most of the afternoon laying on my bed in the Pink Room and later went to the Office to check some emails and relax. Still recovering we spent the evening watching a movie. We watched The Island then went to bed to have some more crazy dreams courtesy of my Malaria tablets that have entertaining me during past couple of weeks as I have slept.

Sunday we woke up and made our way to church on our bikes. The service starts at 9ish so we were able to set off for around five to, as it is only just round the corner from the main town. I kitted myself up in my more “dressy-up” clothing and I even threw on a light sweater just as an extra layer as the sun was not yet out and there could be the chance of a small shower.
So Matthew and I flew onto church on our bikes, speeding through the town. I got so far and I noticed the road, or the lack of it, in front of me starting to become boggier. I got so far and was really prepared to pedal it out and make it to the church gates without putting down my shoes in the mud. I already saw that Matthew was pushing his, but I really didn’t want to have to stand in the worst puddles ever and become caked in mud. I stuck it out as far as I could but eventually had to give in. My tyre was stacking on the mud and my brakes clogged to the extreme. I pushed the bike to the gates not best pleased at the state of my shoes. I then walked into the service just starting with the tucked in trousers and the now red and black shoes as apposed to just black.

After the service we took an alternative root home where there was less mud but this certainly didn’t mean we avoided any more chance of getting dirty. The excess mud from our tyres was repeatedly thrown up at our backs, around the mud guard. Luckily it wasn’t so bad when I got home. I could easily wipe it off with a cloth.

I started my washing and did this all afternoon. I used my dirty water to rinse the mud off my tyres and left my clothes out to dry. I then decided to shave the hair as it was getting longish now and it was time for a trim.

After washing and collecting in my clothes we began to watch a movie. We watched about an hour of Enemy of the State until around 7.30pm and then were called over for a special meal, to Solomon the Directors house, which is just next to the guesthouse on the compound. I got to eat an awesome meal. Cuckoo, which is chicken, potatoes, spinach and I even had the chance to try some more Ughali, traditional African food. We stopped here late, eating banana cake and banana ice cream for afters and left feeling rather full but exhausted.

So that was the weekend over and there are probably lots of things I have missed out. I might start using bullet points for my days, but that’s not as interesting to read, or write is it.

God Bless x

Blog #6

2007-06-04T10:01:00.001+03:00

Its Friday lunch time and today is a Public Holiday. I feel a bit under the weather. I feel as if I have tonsillitis, a headache and the fact that it sounds like I have an army of people on my door step praying, while I’m trying to sleep doesn’t seem to help the situation very much either. Matthew has gone off on a day trip somewhere so I’m using my time wisely to try and recover for the afternoon. After lunch I’m supposed to be meeting Anthony to go with him to see his group perform but I don’t really feel up for it. I'm going to see how I feel after lunch and if I’m still not in the mood I’ll call him and let him know.

The week got off to a slow but productive start. Monday we began our project, working on the Analysis part for the documentation we had to prepare. Using a guideline to make sure we didn’t miss anything we had to account for, we wrote up exactly what the programme was about and in what ways we were going to achieve donations for child sponsorships. We cracked on with this all morning, working right up to lunch, barely stopping to talk to others who wanted our attention. After lunch we were straight back to it again and got a considerable way through, leading to an even more productive afternoon.

Over the weekend Matthew had gone out and bought me a bike. I mentioned the idea to him previously because he has a bike himself, but never expected for him to go out and buy one without telling me. It was cool though, I mean I would have probably put off buying one so the fact he just did it moved things on a little quicker. I got to ride this to and from the Office. He had taken it to the Fundi to get properly checked over before I rode it, because they can often break or become faulty in the first week of using them.

In the evening Julius, one of the guys from the Mission came round for evening devotion. Today we were just going to be sat around talking about ourselves. He is a good man is Julius and it was nice of him to take time out and come round to sit with us. He lives quite close so it didn’t take him long to get to us and he spent about an hour and a half with us. By this time we didn’t know where the evening had gone to. That was another day gone by but luckily for the project side of things, we had a lot to show for it.

Tuesday morning we decided we were going to sit down and blitz the first part of our project, trying to finish the documentation. With a confident start yesterday we knew we could get the basics over and done with quite soon. We made flow diagrams and wrote down a few ideas for promotion and continued this till lunch.

John has been taking packed lunches for a few days now so lunch was now just provided for me and Matthew. The great thing about this was that they still put out the same amount as they would usually serve for three people. We love it. We ate it all up and were still hungry. We even debated putting Peanut butter on the remaining skin from our Mango for desert. After lunch we went into town on our bikes to buy some biscuits. We initially thought bananas, but then we realised they can be hard to carry when riding a bike, so we settled for the less healthy option. Back at the office we munched the biscuits down while we got on with the project. Suddenly the power went so had no Internet access and everything at the offices came to a stand still. Luckily for me, I had my laptop and all my work was saved and the battery was working great. We continued on with things, however having to change things slightly because of there being no Internet. Some Americans who are working for the charity Rescue Steps came to the Cyber Centre but obviously with no power their trip was useless. They hung around for a while spitting out their American slang while we continued to discuss our project.

After a while my battery began to die so we couldn’t go any further with things. We also needed to access something over email so we were kind of backed into a corner with the whole process. We gave up and decided to go for a short bike ride before evening dinner. Just as we unlocked and got on our bikes the power came back on and because it was getting late on anyway, we decided to still go for the ride to Dreamland and back.

We set off back to the guesthouse to drop off my laptop first and then set off to Dreamland for the short ride. On the way students were walking home from school. This was the first proper ride I had been on in a while and not being used to a bike, my bum instantly started hurting from the hard seat and my hands sore from the grips on the handle bars. Not only that but some of the journey was uphill and even though it wasn’t a ridiculous slant, it was still a climb and exhausting. Along the side of that I had flies shooting towards my face and eyes and all these students saying hello to me wanting replies. I couldn’t win. I got to Dreamland school and was shattered. We stayed watching some children prepare a dance routine for an event for about 4 minutes then set off again back for dinner.

I got back in once piece but was slightly tired, however not as bad as I imagined. I guess the down hill stretches on the way back must have been a life saver. After dinner we didn’t have any devotion so we watched a movie. Coach Carter was our choice and even though I have seen this before, it was cool to recap on it.

“Our biggest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our biggest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

Wednesday Matthew went to El Doret to get his hair cut. I was originally going to go with him but I knew I would have other opportunities to see the place so I could take a trip out there when I was less tired. I woke for breakfast but then once Id finished it I went back to my room. This morning, rather than going to the office I was going to stay in my room and complete some work there. I laid down and had an hour or so nap before waking up and switching on the laptop.
After lunch I went for a short ride as I still had a little time to spare before I went on to the office. I took the trip to Dreamland almost, turning back before I got the steep section. I went to the office and unlocked it with the keys Matthew had lent me. I worked in there for a while until Matthew arrived back with shorter hair and some new jeans.

Matthew said he fancied watching another DVD so we decided we would finish watching Shawshank Redemption again on the laptop. I knew what was going to be said next as Dean from work knows the script off by heart, so instantly I knew when the “I hear you’re a man who can get things” parts were coming in. We watched this late into the evening and I could feel that I was lacking sleep and needed all the rest I could get.

Thursday had arrived and I didn’t even realise how special this day was. You know the theory about busses back home, the fact that you wait for one and none come, then they all come at once? Well that’s basically what happened this week. We waited all week for things to happen and they decided to all happen at the back end of it.At 8.30am we were at the offices and the power decided to die on us again. I don’t know why but my laptop wasn’t charged so it wouldn’t switch on, and I wonder if I hadn’t turned it off from the night before and it had drained whilst in my bag. So we couldn’t get on with things so we had to find something else to do with our time. Matthews’ bike needed fixing as his chain was bust and his mud guard had snapped. We took it to the Fundi where he used his special skills to somehow repair it and still make it look as good. We left him to it and went to check out the market as today was Thursday and that meant Market Day.

We went to the cattle market, the clothing market and even got to see and smell the fish market with the privilege of walking through it and inhaling all the fishy odours. We scouted round here for an hour just basically getting the feel for a traditional African market and seeing what Kenya had to offer. The Cows and Bulls were in their pens for customers to view and situated by the side of the roads were people selling all kinds of things ranging from vegetables to second hand shoes. I met the second drunk of my trip so far and we exchanged the touching of knuckles as we tried to pass by him as quickly as possible. We went back to claim Matthews bike which was now fixed and went back to the office.

The power still wasn’t back on and there was nothing we could do. We went to the guesthouse hoping for an early lunch. We played some games of Uno, a card game where you have to match the colours or numbers, with Rose and Mark and I think I won about 3 games. So after lunch we sat in the lounge and drew up some designs in my sketch pad. Well that’s what we planned to do but we were real tired so we had a little kip on the couches in the lounge. I went to my room because I wasn’t comfortable, but when I got there I realised I had stripped my bed in the morning ready for the blankets to be cleaned. So I laid on my bed occasionally feeling bit cold. At this time I starting coming down with this headache I’ve now got. I think I fell asleep for maybe an hour on and off, but was woken by the sound of voices. After chilling for a bit I decided to rise from my room and see what was going down with Matthew and Dennis. I went to their Simba, which is the African name for where they stayed, where we listened to some music before dinner. The power still wasn’t back on but luckily the cooker was gas heated so we had a nice meaty dinner to guzzle down.

After 6 it starts getting dark here and soon it was pitch black. We had to use our torches to move round and we had to travel from Matthews’ room all the way over to the guesthouse lounge in the pouring rain. We were then informed the power should be back on in around 35 minutes but as it had now started to rain and was as heavy as always, we found this very doubtful. To our surprise the power did return but only to go out again when the thunder and lightening started.

Now at the guesthouse we had quite a lot of visitors from a local church, who have rented out the conference hall for a three day prayer and fasting session. Bearing in mind because I am staying here for what is interpreted as a long period of time, I have the pleasure of staying in a room that is not in the main building of the guesthouse. So if you like I have my own little crib separate to the main ones in the compound. My room is situated to side of this conference hall and it seems like the group that have rented the building are having a 3 day “as-loud-as-you-can” praying competition.

They all have the greatest intentions at heart and I admire how dedicated and under the influence they are. All I could hear was the sound of repetitive voices and someone using the room next door to go to the bathroom. So this went on to late into Thursday night and stopped at around midnight. I remember waking up to silence and thinking what a relief. Then I remember waking again after around 2.30am to the sound of loud voices and that’s when I began to think they were all camping outside my door.My alarm woke up at 7am this morning, where it is now Friday the 1st of June. I still had my banging headache and was really wishing it would have disappeared during my sleep the night before. I began to get ready for breakfast and started to clean my teeth. The praying outside was still taking place and quite amusingly I then got a knock on my door. It was John knocking to see if I had woken up as he quite regularly likes to do. I found the fact that he even had to ask pretty funny as he even had to raise his voice himself to speak to me.

So after breakfast at 8am I went back my room where I was going to go back to sleep and try and get rid of this nasty feeling inside me. I got under the covers, put my head on my pillow and guess what, they shut up. How convenient. Wanting to sleep so badly, I put my head down and tried to get there as quickly as possible before the chanting started again. 5 minutes into my attempt it unfortunately started up again, but I had my ear plugs in and maybe because it was during the day, it didn’t seem so loud.

So it’s now Friday afternoon and I didn’t end up going out with Tony after all. Not because I wasn’t feeling any better, because I am a bit, but because he wasn’t back in time as he took a journey out in the morning to Bungoma. Instead I spent most of my afternoon chilling with Dennis, on a bike ride, playing Uno and finish this blog off. I'm just waiting for dinner now and I’m going to wait for a phone call off the folks this evening as I haven’t spoken to them over the phone since I left.

God Bless x

Blog #5

2007-06-02T15:38:00.000+03:00

It’s now raining and the guys are off doing their own things. I think John is sleeping in the lounge and Matthew is probably over at the house or maybe just doing the things Matthew likes to do. Personally, I’m sat here in my room listening to my Justin Timberlake, admiring the background music but at the same time wishing I had an instrument I could pick up and try to learn as I am in a very productive and pro active mood. It’s Sunday afternoon and I have just finished my ironing. It’s been my first cleaning weekend and I have just neatly folded the small number of items I have just washed away in my draws. I’ve got some time to myself so I thought I’d sit down and quietly sum up the long weekend for my blog in peace.

Friday was the beginning of the last weekend of the month and for all the staff at the mission it was the Prayer and Fasting weekend which meant taking time out from your usual schedule and dedicating it to the Lord. The day didn’t start very well for me and I soon realised it was going to be one of those days. I got up feeling sweaty and tired and head straight for the shower before breakfast. I was really looking forward to a nice refreshing shower so I pulled on the curtain ready to release the water. As I pulled on the shower curtain it tore right across, all the way to the middle. I kept hold of the part of the curtain that had pulled away and thought to myself “what can I do to fix this”. I remembered I had some plasters in my suitcase that I could stick the plastic pieces together to make a full curtain again to shield the water. I let go the curtain to head for the suitcase and the weight of the fallen piece of curtain made the curtain rip even more. I left it, grabbing my plasters as quickly as possible and used them to link together the two pieces again. By this time it was too later to shower and if I did I would be real late for breakfast.

I continued my day with breakfast to try and fix me up for the rest of the day. I made sure I stocked up as the fasting process began after lunch and didn’t close till Sunday morning at breakfast. It was going to be a long weekend and certainly something I am not used to experiencing and participating in. After a nice breakfast I went over to the offices to do some work. I continued to work on the Gap Programme website that was just about complete but we were struggling and trying to work out how we could test and host it temporarily. At this time the recently interviewed and hired IT Technician had arrived for his first day of work that was at least a week prior to when he was properly due to start. So the mission have been having a lot of problems with viruses and with a Cyber Centre to keep active it was important to get the new guy in early to get the ball rolling and get the computers back up to an at least decent state. By this time it was reaching lunch time and I was already hungry and began to worry about the whole prayer and fasting experience. I'm skinny already, but the fact I could loose what weight I had wasn’t the problem. The whole experience seemed slightly over whelming for me and I wasn’t sure if I could comfortably complete the whole weekend. With this on my mind I spoke to Matthew and discussed how he went about the whole process as back home I’m pretty sure he goes about life in more of less the same way I do. After a bit of discussing and explaining I came to the conclusion I would take it easy this month with the whole process because I had two other weekends after this one to take part. One of my worries was due to the fact I was new to this and felt I was being thrown in at the deep end. I felt that if I took in too much too soon it would scare me away from becoming more in touch with things, and that was certainly not what I wanted to gain from my three month experience. I don’t particularly admire myself for being a slacker because over the past two weeks I’ve embraced the new experiences even if I felt slightly apprehensive about what I was getting myself into and didn’t like to let myself down at this stage.

At 11am I met with Tony, who was going to be my mentor over the twelve weeks of my stay. This was my first meeting so it was basically going to be getting to know each other and discussing how I’ve found my stay so far. We spent about 30 minutes discussing what I had done and also spent a little time introducing ourselves telling each other what we do and our interests. Tony is a proper sound guy and I couldn’t have asked for a nicer person as a mentor. He has a really good head on his shoulders, plus he seems really understanding and had some interesting things to tell me about himself and his background. He is works for the COREL scheme which is a loan scheme organized by the mission. He told me he is involved in AID’s and sex awareness around schools and is also in a music group. We discussed and arranged that over the next few weeks I would be able to take some time out with him to see what he does and have the chance the check out his group which sounds interesting. One positive side of it is that they sing in English so I will be able to understand and get a feel for their music.

So after my discussing earlier on the Prayer and Fasting subject, I continued to eat but made my portions smaller. I knew this weekend would be tough but that I still had to take in as much as I could manage. In the afternoon I had a rest, took a nice shower and got myself ready for the evening where the prayer sessions began in the main hall at the IcFEM mission offices.

While showering with a new curtain I had been given, I realised I hadn’t properly sung since I had left home. All the rooms here at the guesthouse are quite closely situated and I would probably be heard by other members staying in and around the compound if I was to rock out a tune. I decided it wouldn’t matter if anyone was to hear, I hadn’t done it in a while and missed it. I confess I couldn’t hit the notes properly and also that I spent too long in the shower but it felt good to be in a more relaxed environment while I prepared for an evening of prayer. The prayer meetings began at 7.30pm and Ann kindly offered us a lift to the offices as it was dark and walking in the dark could be dangerous and also there was the fact that we could slip and look like idiots caked in red mud.

I sat towards the back of the hall which was filled with around 50 odd people. I still hadn’t purchased myself a full Bible but hopefully I would still be able to stay interested and follow what was going on. The service began and luckily there was a translator at the front. The current speaker would speak so much in English then the translator would translate it into Swahili. It was quite interesting and just the amount I needed to be involved in to make me appreciate and learn about what was being preached. We heard testimonies and stories as people spoke from the front. They were interesting and shared with us lots of different peoples experiences. I was sat next to a guy with his little girl on his knee. She was around two and half years old and the most beautiful little girl I had ever seen. She was really dark with big shiny eyes. When I first came into the service I sat down and shook hands with the man beside me and also had the enjoyment of shaking the little girls too. I sat throughout the session with this little girl staring and wanting to touch my hands. I think she was fascinated with the difference in skin colour and was pulling my fingers and stroking my arms. She would occasionally have a wander on her own around the hall then come back to attempt to put her hands in my palms. She stood by me while I was sat down and put her head in my hand as if she was going to sleep. I begun to tickle her chin and she would smile. It was a great feeling to see the fascination in her eyes.
The whole session lasted till around 10pm and I was exhausted and couldn’t wait to get back home for bed. The guys walked back as there was a large group but because I was eager for my bed, I got another lift from Ann.

Saturday I needed to do my washing. I’d collected all my nasty socks and t shirts together in a bag and stashed it in my wardrobe. It had been there for days and because of my sweaty feet from my trainers it was beginning to smell, so I knew it was time to get my head on and give them a good clean. Matthew was doing his washing also so I joined him by the tap just on from my room and mixed some cold water with some washing power and began scrubbing. I left things to soak while I hung out some items to dry on the washing lines provided. I was a bit worried that my t shirts would become stretched and end up being massive on me. I didn’t want to have over sized t shirts for the rest of the trip but definitely didn’t want to smell like a tramp either. I gave everything a good clean and hung it all out. The sun wasn’t very strong today and there were patches of rain, but after a while things began to perk up and our clothing began to dry.

After I collected in my dry clothes it was time to go to a service for the prayer and fasting. The service had been going on all day but I don’t think I could have managed to sit through about 15 hours so I just went for the remaining 6 and I’m glad I did. It was just again the right amount for me to be involved in and I went out to the front and did some singing with the others and watched Dennis play the keyboard. He was pretty good and he is self taught. So after the evening session we walked back in the dark. Luckily we didn’t fall as we used Matthews’ phone as a torch.

Sunday morning we woke and had breakfast and I’m pretty sure John would have been dying to tuck in as his full attempt at the fast was complete. We went to church riding on a Buda-Buda and like always I was so worried about falling off. We got there in one piece though and I only trapped my hands once underneath the cyclists’ seat as I held on for the journey which was great. We came back and decided to watch a movie. We have now got a television in the guesthouse lounge but with no signal, and Matthew has also purchased a DVD player. We tried hooking the DVD player up to the TV but I think the TV is old with not enough slots on the back for the cables to be connected so I just got out the laptop and we watched it on there. We began to watch Shawshank Redemption, but after about 10 minutes we realised it wasn’t very appropriate, so we switched it off and replaced it for RV, a nice friendly PG featuring Robin Williams and JoJo. Despite the predictable gags and the over exaggerated disasters it was quite amusing and what we needed to finish the weekend and relax on this Sunday afternoon.

Once the movie had finished I decided to start my ironing. I pressed my t shirts and trousers and folded them ready to be put in the draws of my room. As I did this I listened to some music while the others began to do their own thing. I didn’t have much to iron and was finished quite quickly so I returned to my room leaving John snoozing sat on the couch.

I'm pretty tired myself but it’s not long till dinner and I don’t want to start a nap to be soon woken again. It’s raining pretty hard and I’ve just opened the door to look outside. It’s hammering down and the guttering and barrels that collect the water are over flowing into the plants and flowers. I think I’m going to sit and watch the rain for a while and may kick out some choruses while the rain can drown out the chance of waking anyone. Take care x

Blog #4

2007-05-25T12:38:00.000+03:00

I'm back again and this time I’ve got a question for all the fellas reading this. Have you ever woken up in the morning and thought to yourself, “Hmm I might as well wear my least favourite boxer shorts today, no one is going to see them”? You have, yeah me too, because it’s not everyday you are going to find a beetle crawling in your trouser leg is it.

Yeah that’s right, I found a beetle making its way towards private parts, and it was pretty big too and scared me to death. I was on my way back from working in the community and was riding up front in Tatwa’s, the deputy director’s jeep. The back of the car was full with 4 passengers, that’s 4 other guys from the mission and we were driving on the most bumpy roads back home for evening dinner. I had been waving at children through the window who were treating me like a celebrity and then I placed my hand on my lap as I faced on looking out of the windshield. I felt something hard and strange on my leg and all of a sudden freaked out. Instantly Tatwa knew there was something wrong and that I had something travelling around inside my linen leg warmers. He pulled over and I jumped out by the side of the road. I felt the hard, round creature inside on the left leg and was really debating whether to pull down my pants and scout round inside to see what it was. I knew exactly where the creature was, I could feel it. I took a second to think, no longer as this was too crucial as i seriously hate creepy crawlies. I dropped my pants slightly bearing my less attractive underwear, and reached down on the outside of my boxers and grabbed the creature which clutched to my hand. In a tenth of a second I had removed my hand and launched the creature on the floor fast as a bullet, even now writing about an experience which was probably about 3 hours ago, I’m still shivering at the thought of it.

My days are beginning to find themselves a set routine so there are less new things for me to include and present in my blog. So rather than keeping you up to date with what seems like a Coronation Street, 4 times a week special, I’m going to make them less frequent and maybe slacken it down to once or twice a week max.

Monday the 21st began like any regular day back at work in Brighouse. I was straight into the day with plenty of problems to take a look at and other areas to help out in if my skills could be of any use. Ann’s office was the main problem for my morning as she has encountered a virus like many of the other machines that can be found in and around the offices. I stuck to the structure both Dean and I are most comfortable with, and did a full scan with AVG, the best free virus software on the world wide web. I did this and it only made a small difference as the computer seemed to be pretty messed up. The whole computers seem to have lately been flooded with viruses and the network doesn’t seem to be performing and making things any easier. The new IT guy should be coming over the next coming week so I’m pretty sure i'll have the opportunity of helping assist him as he tries to erase these problems.

So the morning was taken up by looking at Ann’s computer and by the afternoon she was experiencing new problems. Later in the afternoon things got a lot better. I began designing t shirts for the GAP programme for Matthew. I felt, as a volunteer myself that the t shirts needed to be pretty cool as well as appropriate for the mission. I designed the front and back in a matter of minutes and we were really pleased with the results. The design was simple but effective and went alongside the design we had recently created to update the GAP website and letter heads.
Tuesday was different. Matthew told me I would be working “out in the field” his words not mine and I assumed having not discussed it in detail because I am willing to try almost anything, that I may have the possibility of getting muddy or even worse ripping my items of clothing. So because of this I put on some trousers that were relatively new but I wasn’t bothered about ruining, a black t shirt to hide the mud that I may get covered in and some old trainers that could support me for the day. I didn’t particularly look scruffy but nether the less, I was dressed and made my way over for morning breakfast. Sat with Matthew I filled myself up on sausage and tomato while the kitchen staff very kindly prepared my packed lunch for the day. We discussed our nights sleep and then began to talk about the things we both we doing this day. My adventure for the day was brought up and that’s when I found out “in the field” was technical jargon that translated very simply to “in the community”.

I was going to be working within the community which involved hopping in the deputy director’s jeep and taking about a 45 minute journey to another town. We were getting very rural and took trips on roads that had seen better days. I had to sit through an almost four hour seminar that saw three different languages and dialects and not one of them were one I understood. I had a translator helping me out but he was also involved within the seminar so some of the time I had to sit and try my best to figure out what was going on. There was a lot of laughing and a lot of enthusiasm as the congregation stood up and told stories about how their fellowships have helped certain parts of their local communities. We heard stories how one fellowship worked together to aid a new mother who couldn’t provide milk for her new born. As a result of this the fellowship worked together to earn and support the mother, and provide her with milk that she could give to the child. There were many other stories told and they showed how kind and generous people can be who are filled with the faith of God. It was a long seminar but it was an experience I definitely wasn’t going to forget. I had another one of these which I would be involved in on Thursday and if the congregation were anywhere as enthusiastic as todays, then it would be another very successful event for the mission staff.

Wednesday was just another day in the office. I didn’t do much apart from continue creating the GAP programme website. I got frustrated a few times with the constant slow network and the failure of connection but managed to design and preview successful and attractive pages. This continued all day until the evening when we went back for evening dinner. Afterwards we had evening devotion and quite kindly one of the guys from the mission Edward, came to support and assist us. Just a few days ago Edward had just had a new daughter which he and his family had named Joy. He told us how previous to this his wife lost a child during labour therefore they named their new child after the way their new blessing made them feel. This devotion only lasted about 20 minutes and it was nice to look back other the day and show appreciation for the things we had done and received. Thursday was another one of my days working within the community. This would be the third time the mission staff had carried out the seminar so they were getting pretty used to the long sessions and the best ways to get the messages across. Both days we have been due to go out to work within the community the meeting time suggested was 10am. Just like I have experienced many times before, 10am was never going to be the time we set off and we usually ended up leaving at around 11.

We set off in the “Bone Shaker”, that’s the name I have given to Tatwa’s vehicle as you get thrown all over the place because of the poor suspension. The last trip we took in it, it was very noticeable that it was leaking break fluid and we needed to get this fixed so we set off and stopped at one of the local garages in Kimilili town. The job took around two hours as I watched the mechanics remove the wheels, attack and replace the break pads and also fix the area in which the break fluid did its thing. It was around mid day where the sun is at its hottest and I really didn’t fancy getting third degree burns and being uncomfortable for the next week or so, so I sat in the shade on a small wooden bench that I expected to give way at any moment. Mobiles were ringing every other minute with people from the seminar wondering where we had gotten to. Eventually we were back on the road after the repair was complete and we attended another seminar that was very productive indeed.

I sat it out, only leaving for a couple of minutes to stretch my legs and eat my sandwiches to stop me from passing out in front of what was again another lively congregation. After the seminar was over we went next door to the neighbour’s house where food had been prepared for me and the rest of the mission staff to share. I was very hesitant at first as I had been warned to be very careful of what I eat when I am not at the guest house. There are obvious reasons for this such as they may have been prepared in water that I shouldn’t be consuming and also they may have ingredients in that my stomach is not normally used to. I sat and watched while the food around me was placed in bowls to be eaten and I was pretty hungry but was more bothered about my health than having my tummy rumbling until I made it home for my evening meal. It was interesting to find out what was being eaten as the food was quite traditional and not very obvious to the eye what it was. They had Ugali, which is maize and water mixed together to make a dough. They had cooked and mashed banana and also rice and chicken with its juices which they like to call Cuckoo. My eyes were watching the food as they advised me what I could and couldn’t eat from what was available. I didn’t want to be rude and say I didn’t want any but at the same time I didn’t want to eat something that was going to make me ill. Eventually I gave in and decided I could try some of the food that had been suggested it was okay to consume. I grabbed my spoon and took a lump of the cooked mashed banana. It was delicious and I was so happy I tried it. I grabbed my bowl and filled it with my new favourite dish for the afternoon. I then added some of the juices left over from the chicken which made a nice soup that I could do some mixing with. The bananas didn’t taste like bananas but more like an Irish potato. I couldn’t get enough. Not going overboard I stuck to one bowlful just to take it easy and get my stomach used to new foods.

After the beautiful meal and some great hospitality we set off back home to do whatever we had planned for the evening. I assume by this point the beetle had already entered my trousers from the home I had just recently been sat in. The house was really basic with mainly chairs and a table and it also had a small cat roaming round with the occasional hen and chick clucking round to say hey. I never expected to take one of their pet’s home with me in my trousers but I was too freaked out and shocked after finding it to even consider taking it back.

It’s been an eventful past few of days and the weekend is coming up soon which will give me one or two stories for me to tell. Hopefully they won’t involve any creatures or any disasters of any kind x

Blog #3 - The Weekend

2007-05-21T17:57:00.000+03:00

So we all have names and many of us have nicknames, but if I were to give you the name from the season you were born in, or chose to name you after the weather conditions on that particular day, the chances are you would probably look at me funny right? Well I guess if we were living here then there would be plenty of funny looks flying around, as it has come to my attention that there may be a good chance of being blessed with a name such as “Wafula” which means Rainy Season. Speaking of nicknames, I’m still in the first week and two of the guys, Dennis and Edgar, have already called to me as JT. I’m predicting it’s from the short hair and the slight beard, but the beard has now gone so maybe they might need to come up with an alternative for the time being.

Sat 19th and today is the first day of my first weekend and it is wash day. I had a little longer to sleep in this morning and came for breakfast at 8.30am. Breakfast was kind of different with some new food to try. I was slightly late compared with everyone else so I was sat for most of the time at the table on my own. I ate Mandazi, which is like a hard donut with a slightly popcorn taste to it which was quite nice when coated in jam. Matthew was washing his clothes out by the garden using the filtered water collected by the rain. I didn’t need to wash quite yet as it’s only been a few of days since my arrival, but I’m pretty sure by the way things are going next week is going to be my first attempt. I sat on the balcony or veranda, whatever you want to call it and finished off the remainder of the blog from the night before. The sun was shining as always and the birds tweeting, so I sat with the laptop on a very unstable desk, writing in peace.
Once Matthew had finished his washing we decided to take a walk to the offices to take a look to see if I could fix the Office email account that wasn’t working properly and start on creating some I.D cards for the IcFEM mission staff. We didn’t spend long here as it was coming up to lunch time, but just before we were due to leave, Matthew was asked to cover for Norah, the lady at the Cyber Centre, as she went home for her lunch. I left Matthew to continue with things and hold the fort at the Cyber Centre and took the short stroll back to the guesthouse carrying my laptop in my rucksack and constantly pulling up my trouser legs at the back to stop them from becoming caked in red soil.

I had lunch on my own then went to my room where I was to wait for Matthew to come back at around 2.15pm. I haven’t mentioned this before but since the very beginning of my trip I have begun doing sketches in a notepad illustrating my feelings and activities I have seen and done in each particular day. I began to create a masterpiece using only my black biro and my A4 lined pad and sketched away for about 15 minutes listening to my music with the ipod at full volume. By this time I was chilled out to the max and began to feel a little sleepy and realised I still had a bit of time on my hands before Matthew was back for dinner and we had to be off again. I laid down, stuck in my ear plugs to drown out the sound of buzzing flies and chattering people and got a little bit of rest which I guess I needed. I woke up maybe two hours later and with no clock or time in my room. I was a little worried that I had missed Matthew and that he had been to wake me but left with the result of me not waking up. That was the case. Well kind of. Matthew had been back but was back later than expected. He then had to rush off to get his bike mended at the “Fundi” and had left without waking me. I thought he may be down at the offices where we had arranged to originally spend the afternoon, but when I walked all the way there, I got there and realised he wasn’t. Fortunately I was able to get a lift back in Solomon, the directors Volvo.

Matthew may be gone sometime and I didn’t really have much to do around here. I knew I had and episode of Heroes, a TV show I like watching back home, downloaded onto the laptop and I knew this was a better opportunity than any to catch up while I could. After finishing this, Matthew appeared at around 6.15pm. I had already spoken with the guesthouse staff and arranged for the others to return before I had my evening dinner. So Matthew was back but we thought it would be polite to wait for John as he had head off to DreamLand with Solomon to take his very first look around.

After dinner we sat in the guesthouse lounge. Matthew and I discussed and created designs on the laptop and were getting quite excited at what we had put together on screen. We continued this until late in the evening, creating him a document template with a header and footer for his Gap Programme letters.

It was now Sunday and time to hit up church but not before we had sausage, tomato and toast for breakfast. I was told over the next few of weeks I would get to experience a number of churches to see what the difference was between them all, and then finally decide which one I liked best and would prefer to visit for the remained of my trip. Ann Lipson, who preaches at the front of the church we were to visit today, offered Matthew, John and me a lift onto the service. I was suited up smart in my black suit trousers, rocking the shirt and tie and also wearing my black shoes that hopefully wouldn’t get ruined from the ground I would be walking on. Luckily for me it hadn’t rained for the previous day so the ground was solid and reasonably dry in most areas. We hopped in the car and set off to the church which was about 10 minutes away. We hit bumps and bounced in and out of ditches from the uneven back roads and just over half way there we realised that the front driver side tyre had got itself a nice big puncture making it completely flat. Typical eh, I just took in the whole situation as the people on the streets all started to gather round and point.

We took out the spare type from the back of the car and also removed the jack ready to change the flat tyre for the spare. All of a sudden the thought of home came back to me as a couple of weeks previous to coming out here, my dad was working on my car changing the tyres as he was putting on new wheel trims. I remember thinking watching my dad tinkle with the tyres, “Man I would never be able to do that”. Well it was my time to have a go. So John and I had to tackle this problem and between us both we had a pretty good idea of what we were doing. I wacked the jack under the car and began to twist the leaver thingy until the car starter to rise. My bad, I had put it too close to the centre so the back started to rise instead of the front. How was I supposed to know? That’s why I’m an IT Technician and not a mechanic. Anyways I began to move it towards the front when a gang of little children ran over to watch as two Mazungu’s attempted to fix this car, then soon after 2 older guys came round who were more than willing to take over without being asked. I just stood back, kept quiet and watched as they removed the old type and replaced it in a matter of minutes. I was chillin’, there was no need to get all worked up over nothing was there.

So the car was fixed and they drove on to church, I walked on with Matthew who had come back to the car and we sat in for the service which hadn’t even started yet. It began and lasted just short of two hours. There was singing, praying and bible readings involved, just like it every normal church. It was even in English which was pleasing. We were greeted and welcomed by almost everyone. During the service John and I had to stand up and introduce ourselves. John went first and said his name and where he was from but also elaborated a little, wait, elaborated a lot. I began to start worrying as I was struggling of things to think of nevermind say. He didn’t go on for too long but said enough about himself to please everyone and let them have an idea about his background. I couldn’t just stand up and say “Hello, I'm Paul and I'm from England” could I? So I bucked up my ideas and just improvised the best I could. “Hello, I'm Paul or Paulo which ever you prefer. I'm from a town called Halifax in England and this is my first time in Africa. I've been here in Kenya for about 5 days now and I have been made feel very welcome and thank you all for making me feel very welcome this morning”. That’s what I said and everyone clapped and said “Karibu”, which means welcome. Phew that was over, but apparently I did very well and the people I spoke to afterwards remembered everything I had said and were interested to find out more.

We left church and took a stroll back in the afternoon sun. It was warm but I propped up the collar on my shirt to stop the sun from settling itself on the back of my neck and giving me a nice red mark which may give me grief for the next few days.
We came back and had lunch and we knew that this afternoon was for relaxing and doing anything we wanted. We had talked previously about watching a DVD on my laptop in the lounge, so we got out Matthews speakers to amplify the sound and sat back and watched The Pianist for the afternoon. We had to take a break at 6pm for evening dinner but we eagerly returned to watch it after an awesome roast Sunday dinner. I realised that I am actually getting my recommended 5 daily portions of fruit and veg here in Kenya and its actually preparing me and making me look forward to it when I get back home.

We watched the film till late into the evening and soon went to bed once it had finished. Doing nothing can make you more sleepy so once we had finished and packed up I headed to my room to kick some Z’s. Now this is where it gets funny and I show off more of my feminine side. I'm a man right, I mean I like to chop wood and stuff and don’t mind a kick around with the football from time to time, but when it comes to spiders, insects and creepy stuff that can hang over your head while your sleeping, I tend to turn into a bit of a pansy I must admit.
There was this massive spider right, hanging by the side of my bed. When I say massive I mean it was about 2 centimetres in diameter, it wasn’t exactly a tarantula size, but if that bad boy crawled on your face you wouldn’t be best pleased. I sent it outside using a tissue then came back in to notice I had something hanging just off the ceiling. I stood on my bed bare foot, leaving red dust all over my pillow, to peer up to see what it was. Just off the ceiling was what looked like a small golf ball and attached to it was some kind of fly. Now I don’t know exactly what dangerous insects look like, but I wasn’t going to take any chances in leaving this to sit there over night and maybe multiply. What do I do? I thought. So I did what any sensible person would do. Go get someone else to move it.

I went to see John who was just about to lock up the lounge and hit the sack himself. I wouldn’t want to insult him by guessing his age, but he’s retired and I had him climbing on my bed collecting this creature from its hanging position. He collected it down and gave it me to flush. I was like, “Thanks dude”, “I would have done that myself but I’ve got this thing where I don’t like to kill any creatures its not fair” which translates to “Thanks a lot, i'm a scardy cat”.
So good gracious that was over, I could now sleep without worrying. I said my nightly prayer that I promised my Dad I would do and went to sleep hoping I would sleep like a baby and be well prepared for the next day.

I woke up in the morning having to peel myself from the bed, I was still really tired. That’s another story thought so until next time, I hope you are all well and God Bless x

Blog #2

2007-05-19T11:58:00.000+03:00

Day three is now almost over and there are just hours until the official weekend here at the IcFEM camp. I’m just sat in the guesthouse lounge with the smelliest feet ever but I don’t really care who’s around to smell them because I've had an active past couple of days and all I want to do now is sit down, relax and write out something interesting for you all to have a good read at. I’ve just finished my evening dinner which was like always beautiful and I've come to download the images from my camera. The pictures are amazing and I am going to attempt to upload them sometime soon, that’s if the internet connection at the IcFEM Headquarters will let me this time.

Thursday morning May 17th, I woke up from my first nights sleep and I felt pretty awesome. The night before was a bit overwhelming for me but after having a nice good sleep underneath my trusty mosquito net I felt refreshed and excited at what lay ahead for me over the next few months. It’s 7am and I have been woken by Matthew. It’s now time to have my first shower in Kimilili. I was warned the day before that there is a switch to activate the warm water for the shower, but not to flick it too early because if I were to dordle, which my Mom and Dad will agree I do when it comes to showering, the water can heat quickly and eventually feel like it is being poured out of a kettle. So I flicked the switch and headed for the shower to start off my day and to waken myself up, and for sure it certainly did that. The water didn’t start getting warm for at least 2 or 3 minutes so I was stood there naked, shivering slightly, waiting for my wash in a shower that consisted off a tap head to release the water and a grate with eroded tiles surrounding it. After not even 5 minutes in the shower I came out to get dry. I still had Pantene Pro V foam stuck under my arm pits and hair that didn’t even feel as if it had been touched. I had to look up a few times during my shower to see if water was actually coming out, as the water pressure was very weak and the shower head sprayed the water in numerous directions. After my shower I head across for what was now going to be my first breakfast in Kimilili. Matthew and I were sat again on our regular table, eating Toast with Jam and we also had a Mango that was halved and sliced into small squares for us to pull off with our spoons. Today was going to be a day full of firsts and I wanted these new experiences to come as quickly as possible.

So we left the IcFEM compounds as I practiced some Swahili that I had learnt the day before and over breakfast. We reached the main road that could either take us in two directions. We could head left which could lead us to the main town or to the IcFEM Headquarters, or we could head right to DreamLand Medical Centre and Primary School where I would be spending the morning as part of the schedule Matthew has organised for my IcFEM Orientation. The distance to the DreamLand centre was quite far so we decided to catch a Buda-Buda taxi, which was a bicycle taxi that I mentioned I had spotted on my way back from the airport in my previous blog. This experience was different. The roads were very muddy and you really felt as if the stranger who was steering the bicycle you were sat clutching the back of, had your life or at least you’re well being, in his hands. Every second I was on the back I just had the doubt that the tyres were going to give way because of the wet red mud, and I was going to end up being thrown across the floor like a bowling ball towards skittles.

We arrived safely to DreamLand and were shown around the Medical Centre. We saw many of the rooms and a lot of them were being used for multiple purposes, for example some rooms were being used as storage areas rather than consultation rooms and others were being used for both assessment and sleeping facilities. Although the hospitals here were way less advanced than the hospitals back home, they didn’t do so badly for equipment and supplies. Okay, they didn’t have all the latest technology and hi-tech machinery, but they had x-ray scanners and the basics to get them by effectively and successfully. The lady showed me around and was very cheerful. She allowed me to sign the Visitors book which it was very nice to be considered for. We were then shown across to the Primary School where we could scope out the grounds and see exactly what a school in Kimilili was like.

We met up with the teachers in a small room again smaller than my bathroom at home, possibly half the side, maybe less. One of the teachers took me to straight away sign the Visitors Book, and then we left for a guided tour of the classrooms. In each classroom we introduced ourselves and told the children where we were from. The children were really polite and they obviously knew how to act and had a set routine for when visitors arrived. They all stood to attention and all spoke their class names at the same time, they even smiled and allowed me to take a photo of them in their traditional classrooms wearing their traditional uniforms. I took several photos here and it was great to get use out of my camera and be able to have some pictures of what life was like here, so I could send them back home and also keep for myself in the future. We were made to feel so welcome and the children really appreciated and loved the attention and the fact there were visitors, not to mention white ones.

After the trip around the school we took a look round the farming land. I was originally told the story of how the whole DreamLand idea came around by the lady from the Medical Centre, and it was good to put some scenery and proof to the story. The story I was told involves a man who owned this land originally and how he had a dream that saw his land being used to help the needy with lots of green buildings occupying it. He gave up some of his land to the church which was next to his land, but these dreams still continued and he believed God was sending him messages that he needed to give up more land so that it could be used productively. At this time the IcFEM mission were praying for land and some how IcFEM and the owner of the land met and it was agreed to give the land over for productive use.

We also got to take a look at the schools canteen and saw two men preparing food, the real old fashioned way. They had a giant spoon and were stirring Ugali in a huge metal container powered by burning materials underneath it.

After our visit to the DreamLand centre was complete we decided it was a good idea to go spend time in the IcFEM Headquarters in the office and chill, maybe go online and send some emails. We decided to walk back to the office and on the way we walked past another school. All the little children dressed in yellow sweaters and blue skirts or trousers came running towards the fence shouting “Mazungu”, which means White person and “How are you” wanting a reply. They don’t see a lot of white people so this is like a big deal for these children. Even the older children tend to do this I’ve noticed since, and it isn’t meant to be offensive but just because they view people with white skin as rich or as blessed members of the human race.

I had chance to create and upload my blog, send emails to who ever I needed to contact and do whatever I wanted really while I had some free time while the main part of the orientation was on hold. We stayed in the office for the rest of the afternoon until evening dinner time at 6pm. During our stay there was more heavy rainfall and we stayed undercover while we tinkered on our laptops. For a second the power cut out but the computers were soon back up and running again.
In the evening we came back home and had dinner with a new member to the IcFEM mission who was called John Sercombe, a retired accountant from Bromley who has come to stay and help with the missions accounts. We ate and sat in the lounge for an hour or so basically chatting and getting to know each other until i was greeted by Ann for the first time. We then head off to sleep at around 10pm as we had another exciting day ahead of us tomorrow with more activities already planned for us to do.

7am again and I was being woken by Matthew. I remember being woken from the middle of a dream as he banged on the door and told me the time. I hit the shower, had some toast with tomato and fried egg and then set off at 7.50am to morning devotion. This was definitely going to be a new experience and the way Matthew had explained it to me was very precise, but still, it wasn’t how I expected it to be. We sat around in a circle of mixed coloured and styled chairs, in what looked like the main hall of the IcFEM Headquarters compound. It began by us all singing a song from a Praise book and then after this finished we began to repeatedly sing a chorus in which one of the women initiated. Once the singing was over, we all had the chance to pray and thank God for the projects and goings on in our lives. This got quite loud and was interesting to be involved in and watch. At the end of the almost an hour devotion, a few announcements were made regarding the movement of offices and transport.

I set off for a primary school called Kamusinga almost immediately after the morning devotion was complete but before leaving the grounds we placed two broken desktop computers in the Library where interviews for the missions head of communications was being held.
At the primary school the children were mostly outside on the land doing athletic activities and they had been doing this for the past 2 days picking the best students for an athletic tournament that was to be held in Mombassa. We hopped in and out of classrooms introducing ourselves and taking photos of the children and one particular class asked quite a few questions which was good to see and answer. Just incase you are not aware, here in Kenya there is no set age to be able to go to primary school so you can find people of various ages in these classes as education has now become free and you have to pass your class before you can move up to the next. We stuck around for around 40 minutes then decided to head back as we had to fit in another primary school before lunch.

So we walked back towards the guesthouse direction and on past this into town. At this time children were beginning to leave the schools to go home for lunch. There was Me, Matthew and our Kenyan friend Dennis walking back and we had a group of little children following us. Dennis gave two of them sweets and then they immediately ran off with the others who didn’t have an, chasing them trailing behind. We were advised by Dennis how much transport to the next school would cost as unfortunately Mazungu’s can be over charged, and it cost us 20 shillings (18p) each on the back of a Buda-Buda to Lutonyi primary school. This journey was a lot more comfortable as the roads were much more solid with no bumps, so it was all flat and downhill. You begin to pick up speed very quickly so it doesn’t take very long to get to your destination and as you journey down the road you get all the people on either side looking at you and the little children waving.

We both arrived on our separate bikes at Lutonyi primary school, paid the guys who drove us and headed for the gates. The place looked deserted and as if there were no students here on this particular day. When we got in and spoke to the deputy head, we found out the children had left for another school where they too would be doing athletic activities. Never the less we still were shown around the school and were told which classes occupied which rooms and how many students were in each particular class. We were told that the biggest class had 120 students in it and the reason for this is because they don’t have enough teachers to separate the classes and also not enough classrooms to do the teaching actually in. See it's situations such as this that IcFEM are trying to help and raise money to provide the schools with more facilities to expand the schools and make the quality of education for the children much better. As the there were no students in the classrooms, our trip to Lutonyi primary was over after around 30 minutes and we had an uphill trek to get started for our way back for lunch.

A long 30 minutes walk back to the guesthouse and I was boiling. I was sweating and my legs were aching slightly. My stomach was rumbling and I was really looking forward to another great meal that I could munch down in a matter of seconds. Avocado and unions in vinegar was placed in front of me and I felt so bad. I let Matthew take a bite first to see how he reacted as he hadn’t personally had it properly before either. He didn’t seem to squint too much and he began to take another spoon full. I thought I’d have a try as you can’t label something off before you try it can you, so I stuck in my spoon and threw it into my mouth. I managed to swallow it but there was no way I could continue to eat it without forcing myself and probably making myself sick because I really didn’t like the taste. Luckily it was just a starter but I still felt really guilty for leaving what the others thought was a pleasant meal. Later cheese and tomato toasties were served so i had a couple of these blessed gifts.

This afternoon I was going to visit Buko Primary school. This was even further away from where we were staying so we had to get a Matatu from Kimilili town all the way to the school. A Matatu is a van taxi that should hold about 14, 15 people including the driver. This particular vehicle rammed in around 23 people if I counted correctly and amongst the passengers was a police man. It was so cramped and there were even two guys hanging onto the side of the van with the doors open. You felt as if you were almost sat on top of each other and it made me actually appreciate the bus services back home, although the fares here were considerably much less. We jumped off the Matatu and found ourselves at a real rural school where once again there was athletics in place which appeared more like our sports days back home. I took some short video footage of the races and some pictures and it gives you a nice feel of the African culture towards their sports within education. We had the usual trip around the classrooms where I saw one classroom which was really small holding 72 children.

The walk back was hard and really long. Infact it was the longest so far. My trainers began to rub, not because they were not up for the surfaces but more because it was hot and I wasn’t used to walking. It took us about 40 minutes to walk back with the sun beaming down on us and us constantly having to move in to allow traffic and pedestrians to pass us by. We got back to the office and I checked my emails and went online for about 15 minutes. We then came back for evening dinner to fill our stomachs and rest our legs.

I removed my shoes in my room and my feet stunk. I had marks on the top of my feet where the shoes had been rubbing but nothing really to complain about, but I covered them and wore some sandals provided by the mission. I spent most of the evening downloading my images and writing out this blog trying to fit in everything I’d done over the past couple of days. It’s taken me all evening and looking back over it at the length its beginning to get quite worrying. I'm hoping every blog doesn’t come to this length and im sure it wont, but at the same time I don’t want what I am doing to get boring and for me to have nothing much interesting to talk about. I'm feeling pretty happy and comfortable with my surroundings. The back of my neck has gone slightly red but I wouldn’t exactly say I’d caught an awesome tan on my first few days. I'm going to continue to cover myself up with sun cream over the next few days, just to get used to the heat of the Equator and make sure I don’t get in too much pain to ruin part of my trip.

I hope everyone is doing great anyways, and hope you enjoy reading what I’ve done over my first week. I’ll drop another post soon which I'll try keep shorter so you don’t get bored but if you have any questions or anything like that I will be more than happy to let you know.

Lots of Love and God Bless Paul x

Karibu - Jambo

2007-05-17T15:48:00.000+03:00

So its day one of my stay here in Kenya and I’m sat underneath my mosquito net in my room writing out my first ever blog. It’s 3.16pm Kenyan time on Wednesday May 16th 2007 and the rain has just started to hit the ground faster than an Italian football player at his best. I have just finished having some lunch with Matthew in the guest house but before I go any further I would like to start at the very beginning, from even before waking up to find out I still needed to jam at least 3 more items into my suitcase, which already weighed well over the suggested limit.

The night before was pretty great. The guys and I went for a nice meal at Asia to act as my last supper before I hit the road to start my mission, or as I like to call it my K Tour. I was late, which made Stevo late as I was his usual driver for the evening, and as I hadn’t finished packing my stuff because I can be lazy sometimes, I had to keep the guys waiting for my arrival. We stayed out for a final drink then I left and went home for a sleep to prepare me for the long journey ahead. I woke up at 8am and got my stuff together and left for Leeds City station where I was catching a train down to London at 11.40am, to fly on my jet with Kenya Airways.

So I left my Mom to shed her tears in Halifax and I took the train down with my Dad. He knows the score more than I do on these routes so I thought it was best to take a friendly face along (if you can call him that) (only kidding), so he could give me the guided tour of the London Underground. We took the train to Kings Cross. Then took the circle line and ended up at Paddington, then finally hopped on the Heathrow express train to Terminal 4. Hours before I was due to board I was ready and waiting in the Terminal, so I handed my luggage in early and went and discussed my trip with my Dad over a coffee.

After leaving my Dad I got through security relatively easy. Only had to take off my belt, almost lose my trousers and empty my fluids into a bucket, and by empty my fluids I mean, dispose of any bottles of water, juice or items like this that I may have on my person and this was all a safety precaution for the airport. I then head over to the fragrence counters where I sprayed some Sean John - Unforgivable which is an aftershave one of my best buddies now wears and then grabbed some food before I went to Gate 8 where I would be boarding.

On the plane I was surrounded by a large group of American students, the majority of them female, from San Diego. Nate, the guy who was sat in the seat almost next to me told me they were heading to Tanzania where they were to be doing some mission work also for a month which sounded really cool. I then watched an on-flight movie and got a bit of shut eye while the rest of the flight continued onto Nairobi.

8 hours or so later at 7am Kenyan time, I arrived in Nairobi Airport with not much time to catch my next flight to Kisumu. There was a slight hickup at passport control concerning my Visa, but I rushed down to collect my luggage and then across to the domestic flights building to catch the 8am flight to where the guys from IcFEM were going to be waiting for me. I made it through to the departures lounge after having to push to the front of a queue and once again remove my belt and almost lose my trousers. I got on a smaller plane with a flight journey of one hour and landed in Kisumu where I was greeted by four friendly faces, Matthew, Dennis, Edgar and Hosea.

In the main town of Kisumu we stopped off at a small supermarket for me to purchase some bottled water as the water here isn’t safe enough for me to drink. I purchased 2 bottles and Matthew collected some writable CD’s for the cyber centre and some gloves for when they were doing their building work. We then walked around the corner from the supermarket, up some stairs and into a small room used as a mobile phone centre. There were two guys sat trying to fix some mobile phones for the mission but they really didnt look to be having much luck. One or two of the phones successfully unlocked but some appeared dead so we left for another mobile store in search of a new battery. While being stood waiting for Matthew and the guys to discover the problem with these mobile phones, I was harrassed by two little street children for money. I dont know if this was a usual thing or whether it is because I am a white person, but it was definately something I have never experienced before.

So after having a quick drink and finishing up quite unsuccessfully on the mobile front in Kisumu, we head back hitting the road in a small van as our taxi. The roads were so uneven and there were more gaps and holes than anywhere I have been before.
We drove from Kisumu through many other towns on our way to Kimilili. It was amazing to see such a difference in culture. I think other than myself Matthew is the only other white person I have seen all day but to be honest it’s not really that big of a deal and believe it or not its not even that noticeable. On the drive to Kimilili I was just trying to take in the scenery. The land was either green or red on either side of us as we raced down the longest and uncoordinated roads I have ever been on in my life. Overtaking was like a common thing and the sound of a horn was to let pedestrians and cyclists know that there was traffic around. We passed groups of school children dressed in their colourful uniforms, they all looked so similar. They were walking barefoot down by the busy roads but they all seemed to more or less have smiles on their faces from what I saw. We weren’t on the road for an hour and I had already had the excitement of seeing monkeys just hanging out by the side of the road, ready to run and collect any sugar cane that may be dropped by vehicles passing by. The amounts of cyclists were unbelievable and this is a common mode of transport here in Kenya. Bicycles are actually used as taxi’s and with people sat on the back, the ride looked like such hard work. I began getting sleepy throughout the journey to the IcFEM centre so I closed my eyes and miraculously I managed to have a little nap despite the uneven surfaces and being thrown around in the van. I woke up for about 30 minutes left of the journey where all we had left to do was to pick up some gas and make it back to the guest house.

We got to the IcFEM centre and I saw where Matthew was living. It was very small with no luxuries compared with back home but it was nice and looked to have everything he needed for his stay. The rooms had Christian pictures on the walls and he shared this small house with the two others, Dennis and Chris. I was then taken to where I would be staying which was just a few metres away from Matthew. It was apparently Matthews’ original room from his first stay and I guess if he stayed for 7 months and has returned it must be comfortable enough for me to live in for my duration.

I dropped off my things in my room where I then went for lunch with Matthew. On our way I met some of the other people who worked at the guest house. Helen, who was going to be one of my mothers for the next 3 months, Rose who again would be helping with my feeding and Mark and Peter who are also workers here. For lunch we had toast with tomato and omelette or a fried egg as they call it here. Considering I am a slightly picky eater it was beautiful. I ate it all up like there was no tomorrow and had a banana for desert. I then came back to my room to where I get to at the beginning of this blog.

It has now taken me all afternoon to finish this first part of my blog. After I began writing I started to unpack and took an hour and a half nap while Matthew went to make some phone calls and do some paper work. I also had my Dinner (tea) which was once again beautiful. I had spaghetti, carrots, cabbage and peas in gravy which I was amazed I enjoyed. Things here some how seem different from back home, no offence Mom. For desert I had some fruit called Paw Paw which apparently is easily collected from Mount Elgon and is like a melon with a creamy taste to it. After eating I sat in the lounge with Matthew and another member of the mission, Richard. Solomon the director came and greeted me also and he seems like a happy guy who has already made me feel very welcome. Infact everyone I have met has been lovely, another one of the ladies who works here, Mary she seems like a fun person as she has already had a laugh with Matthew and me. So we sat and chatted for a while till around 8pm discussing in brief what I may be doing over the next weeks, then me and Matthew decided to go our separate ways. I headed to my room, while he left for his and we arranged for him to wake me at 7am as I have not yet got an alarm.

So it’s now 10.30pm and I am just about to wrap this thing up and go to sleep, but before I do ill just leave you with some of my thoughts and my conclusion for the day.
It’s been a long two days and I’m drained. Until today the whole idea of this experience hasn’t really felt real, but let me tell you now that the whole thing is beginning to kick in to place and kick in fast. I slightly expected it to have the same kind of feelings attached as you get when you go on holiday. I don’t mean you are in for a big chill out session and all you do is relax, I mean the fact that you leave your friends and family and take a bit of time out from you life. But let me get one thing clear right now, this is certainly not the case. This is my life and unlike when you go on holiday when you actually feel like your old life stops as soon as you get on the plane, right here my life carries on going and I have left everyone behind at home doing their own thing and living their own lives. I never expected to miss things so soon and I don’t know if it’s just because I am tired and in a new place and really don’t know what to expect but it’s slightly lonely. It’s not even because there is no one around or I don’t know what I’m doing, it’s more of the fact I don’t want to let anyone down or the fact I might not enjoy it. I’m going to stick it out as long as I can though, its early days yet and this is a big thing for me. I just hope that everyone at home looks after themselves so I am not the one that has to do the worrying. No one needs to worry about me that’s for sure.

So keep in touch everybody and let me know how you are but please don’t leave me anything that will make me miss home haha. I’m cursing these things my Mom and Dad have packed, every time I seem them it makes me think of home.

Anyways I'm sure things are going to be ace and I’m looking forward to it all. I’m off to sleep now and ill keep you updated over the next few days.

Take care and god bless. x

Gap Programme Commencement Date

2006-11-30T23:50:00.001+03:00

I'll start my gap programme with the IcFEM-Mission during May 2007.